


A Patchwork Family: Out of Shadow, Into Light

by Lbilover



Series: A Patchwork Family Series [4]
Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst, Drama, Healing, Heavy Angst, Heroic Dogs, Hurt/Comfort, Love, M/M, Personal Favorite, Post-Quest, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-14
Updated: 2017-01-14
Packaged: 2018-09-17 11:21:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9321239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lbilover/pseuds/Lbilover
Summary: Sam and Huan must deal with the shadows of the past that still haunt Frodo.





	1. Shadows of the Past

**Author's Note:**

> There are references here to events in previous Patchwork Family stories, and some words taken directly from Tolkien, as well as some influence from movie verse. In many ways I believe this is the single best story I've ever written, and it, like Frodo, Sam and Huan, is very, very special to me indeed. Pretty heavy angst in this story, but the requisite happy ending, of course!

_One evening Sam came into the study and found his master looking very strange. He was very pale and his eyes seemed to see things far away._

_"What's the matter, Mr. Frodo?" said Sam._

_"I am wounded," he answered, "wounded; it will never really heal."_

_But then he got up, and the turn seemed to pass, and he was quite himself the next day. It was not until afterwards that Sam recalled that the date was October the sixth. Two years before on that day it was dark in the dell under Weathertop._

_  
~*~_

_Early Winterfilth, 1420_

Sam lay on his back staring up into the dark. It was nigh on sunrise, the still, quiet time when the world was hushed, waiting on the birds to sing in the morning. He hadn't slept a wink all night- or the night before that, or the night before that, come to think on it. His eyes felt gritty and burned with fatigue, and his head throbbed dully. He'd not felt this kind of desperate weariness since the days of the Quest, and had never thought to experience it again. 

But then, he'd never expected to be lying in bed with Frodo barely an arm's-length away, but as untouchable as if the width of the Brandywine flowed between them. 

Frodo.

Inexorably, Sam's gaze was drawn from contemplation of the shadow-shrouded ceiling toward the object of his thoughts, so near but so very, very far away. Frodo was resting on his side with his back to Sam, and though Sam could but dimly see the outline of his body beneath the covers, he could tell by its absolute stillness that Frodo, too, was wakeful in the dark.

Frodo was curled around Huan- for warmth or protection or comfort, or perhaps all three, Sam couldn't say. The dog's narrow head rested across Frodo's waist; the white snip on his tapering muzzle shone ghostly white in the dim room. The faint liquid gleam of Huan's dark eyes caught Sam's attention as with a sigh, the little whippet settled his chin in the folds of the blanket that was covering Frodo to the chest. Huan, it appeared, could no more find sleep this night than his masters could.

_Poor lad_ , Sam thought, and it was not imagination that told him Huan was as worried about Frodo as he was. Huan knew that something was wrong, terribly wrong, with Frodo. He was acutely sensitive to Frodo's moods, and these past few days especially, he had stayed closer than ever to Frodo's side, and watched him with an anxious expression. From time to time, as now, he would turn a look on Sam that said as clearly as words, "What's wrong with my master, and why can't you fix it?"

_Oh, Huan-lad, if only I could..._  But Sam feared that what ailed Frodo now was not only beyond  _his_  means to fix, but beyond the means of anyone who yet dwelled in Middle-earth.

Over the past days, the light inside Frodo had slowly flickered and died, and no trace of it could Sam find, even when Frodo was at rest. So used was Sam to seeing that faint clear light shining within Frodo that it was almost a physical pain to experience its absence. Yet if it was hard for him, how much harder must it be for Frodo? What must he be enduring in stoic silence that could cause such a loss? And close on the heels of that question came another, even more painful:  _What if that beautiful clear light had vanished forever?_

Whatever was ailing Frodo, he refused to confide it to Sam. He had retreated into silence like a turtle into its shell, and nothing Sam did or said could coax him out again. Sam was vividly reminded of those final terrible days in Mordor, when the Ring had so taken hold of Frodo that he could only stumble blindly along, deaf to all but Its evil mutterings in his mind. Increasingly, Frodo's eyes seemed to look inward, though all about him in this glorious autumn in the Shire there was light and life, hope and healing. 

_Oh, Frodo, my dear, my love. Won't you tell your Sam what is wrong?_  The question trembled on Sam's tongue, but his courage failed him and it died aborning. More agonised minutes ticked past until Sam simply couldn't bear the pressing weight of the silence a moment longer. He shifted onto his side, the rustle of the bedclothes almost startlingly loud in the quiet room. 

Then, though he knew what he was about to do was likely futile, perhaps even foolish, he reached out carefully, as though he was gentling some trembling, terrified small animal he'd found caught in a snare, and set the palm of his hand on Frodo's thin shoulder. It felt rigid beneath the soft lawn nightshirt he wore, and the stark contrast between this Frodo, and the one whose flesh yielded so sweetly and willingly to Sam's caresses, was shocking. 

"Frodo," Sam whispered, putting into that one simple word all the things he desperately yearned to convey:  _turn to me, talk to me, let me help you, I love you..._

"Don't!" The single word cut the still air, harsh and abrupt, and with a quick, impatient movement Frodo shrugged Sam's hand away. "Don't," he repeated more quietly, without even turning his head, and huddled closer around Huan. 

"I'm sorry." Sam's hand fell limply to his side. His vision grew blurry with the tears that never seemed far off these days. Fumbling back the covers, Sam slid out of bed, shivering a little in the cool autumn air let in by the partially open window. He groped for the work-worn shirt and breeches he had laid out on a chair in readiness for the morning's chores, and quickly pulled them on. 

"I'll be in the kitchen, Frodo," he offered in a low voice as he slid his braces up over his shoulders, but the only reply was an obstinate silence. Helpless tears spilled over then, and choking back a sob, Sam fled from the room as if a company of leering Orcs was hard at his heels. 

As he hurried down the hall, the shadows seemed to mock him for his failure, once again, to protect Frodo from harm.  _We have him,_  they whispered darkly from the corners,  _and we shall not let him go this time._

In the sanctuary of the kitchen, Sam struggled to light a lantern, for his hands were shaking, and not from the cold. He almost gasped with relief when with a low hiss the wick caught, and warm golden light sprang into life, growing steadily to a welcome glow that beat back the menacing shadows. If only it could be as simple a matter to banish the shadows inside Frodo, he thought, and remembered the Lady's star-glass, and Frodo with steadfast courage facing down the monstrous Shelob in her lair. It seemed so very long ago now.

_Lady, if I could have but one wish..._  But Sam did not finish the thought, for he knew the wish was a selfish one, and to ask it was to dishonour she who had given him so much already. The weight of the secret Sam had borne in silence for many months was heavy upon him as he set the lantern on the kitchen table, and went to kneel by the cold hearth.

Sam deftly rekindled the banked fire, added the wood he'd laid ready the evening before, and then filled the iron kettle with water and hung it on the hook over the rapidly growing flames. He fetched a teapot, added leaves, got his favourite cup and saucer from the cupboard, took down the honey pot from a shelf. All this he did without conscious thought, for his mind was on the hobbit he loved so dearly, and the haunting image of his still, unhappy form curled around Huan.

Sam remained by the fire while the kettle heated, leaning one arm against the stone mantel and staring down into the leaping red and orange flames as if he might discover the answers he sought in the glowing embers at their heart. 

Outside, the first pale light of dawn was beginning to lighten the sky, and the stars were slowly fading from sight.

***

The trouble had begun at the Birthday; that at least Sam knew for certain. He hadn't realised it at once, but with hindsight Sam could see clearly that Frodo hadn't been himself since that day. Yet it had been a joyous occasion. Merry and Pippin, in the highest of spirits, had arrived from Crickhollow several days beforehand, the bed of the cart they drove piled high with food and gifts for everyone, including Huan. Fredegar Bolger, who was nearly able to reclaim his old nickname of 'Fatty' now, and Folco Boffin had joined them for the celebration, and remained the night. 

It had been reminiscent of the Birthday parties from the years after Bilbo's departure, parties that Sam recalled with an ache of nostalgia. As it had then, it snowed food and rained drink, and Frodo had appeared much like the light-hearted Master of Bag End of old. And yet there had been one great difference between then and now: instead of waiting on Frodo's guests as he had used to do, Sam had been seated at the opposite end of the dining room table from Frodo, in the place that had once been reserved for Bilbo. Though Bag End was now Sam's home, the privilege had sat oddly on him, like a hat that didn't quite fit. 

Frodo had hired Coll Tunnelly, a serving lad from the  _Green Dragon_ , to wait at table on this special occasion, but Sam had instinctively started to get up from the table to help the youngster when he appeared in the doorway, staggering a little under the weight of a tray filled with bowls and a large tureen of mushroom soup. Frodo had laughingly gone to Sam and pushed him back down in his chair. "There are two masters in Bag End now, my dearest Sam," he had whispered in Sam's ear. His hands lingered lightly upon Sam's shoulders, and Sam had blushed a little when Frodo brushed a warm kiss across his cheek with no regard for the five fascinated pairs of hobbit eyes that watched them. 

Sam had worried briefly what tales Coll might bring back to the  _Green Dragon_  about the goings-on up at Bag End, but clearly the possibility of gossip hadn't made a ha'p'orth of difference to Frodo. Sam, recalling their unplanned stay at the  _Golden Perch_  that summer, and how Frodo had kissed him full on the lips in front of a roomful of strangers, had tried not to let it make a difference to him either. 

As the evening wore on, Sam had hardly been able to tear his gaze from Frodo, so handsome had he looked, rosy-cheeked and bright of eye from the wine he'd drunk, and his skin and hair cast with a golden sheen in the glow of the candlelight. 

With good food and wine to eat and drink, and good friends for company, laughter and merriment had been the order of the day. Frodo had had them all in stitches with a lively account of Huan's first encounter with the Widow Rumble's new kitten, Cinder, who had decided the whippet's long thin tail must be a sort of toy, and had chased an indignant Huan around the garden, swatting at it with his tiny, needle-sharp claws.

But Sam wondered if there had not been an element of desperation underlying Frodo's high spirits that evening, and he now believed he could pinpoint the very moment that everything had begun to change...

_"Well, Frodo," said Pippin as the hobbits seated themselves at the table after standing to drink a toast to Bilbo's 130th birthday, "next year Bilbo will pass the Old Took. If I didn't love the dear hobbit so well, I might be indignant at the idea of a Baggins surpassing my great-great-grandfather's record."_

_They all laughed, and Pippin added, "Shall you go to Rivendell to be with him, cousin? Perhaps Merry and I- and Sam, of course- could go with you. I should dearly love to see Bilbo again, and celebrate his birthday with him."_

_The laughter faded from Frodo's face. "I don't know, Pip," he said in a low voice. "I haven't decided yet."_

_"There's no rush, surely," commented Merry. "A year is a long time."_

_"Is it?" And Frodo's hand went to the star-gem at his breast, and he began to finger the white stone with his maimed hand, his expression pensive, even sad._

A deep sense of foreboding had stolen over Sam then. A foreboding that cast a shadow not only over the happy occasion, but over the tenuous sense of hope that had blossomed and grown inside him during the spring and summer of that blessed Year of Plenty, as if soft grey dust from the Lady's garden had been scattered in his heart. 

There had been so many reasons for hope in the months after Frodo moved back into Bag End, and first Huan and then Sam joined him there. Less and less often did Frodo reach for the white gem that had been given to him as a source of comfort by the Queen in Minas Tirith. Less and less often was he plagued by dark dreams of the Quest that left him tossing and muttering in his sleep. He slowly began to gain weight and fill out, and his pale skin to take on a healthy colour. Frodo tramped miles across the fields with Huan every day, and he grew stronger for the regular exercise, and returned home light of step, flushed of cheek and hungry as a hunter. In their bed at night, Sam and Frodo loved each other with ever growing passion, and the light inside Frodo burned with a radiance that outshone the moon and stars.

Small wonder, then, that hope had begun to unfurl delicate petals in Sam's heart. Hope that between them, he and Huan could make Frodo whole once more. Hope that, in the end, love would be enough to heal him. 

But ever since the Birthday, as the light inside Frodo faded and he withdrew into silence, Sam had wondered with a growing sense of dread if that hope had been naught but a fool's hope after all. 

Frodo ate little and slept less, and Sam several times caught him absent-mindedly rubbing his shoulder where the morgul blade had pierced it. The thin silver scar- the only visible reminder of Frodo's encounter with the Witch-king on Weathertop- was always cold to the touch, no matter how Sam tried to warm it with hands, and mouth, and love, but it now appeared actually to pain Frodo, though he uttered not a single word of complaint. When Sam asked him what was wrong, unable to hide his anxiety, Frodo only shook his head in a dismissive manner and said, "Nothing, Sam." But his eyes did not meet Sam's as he spoke, and the pallor of his tired face gave the lie to his words.

Over the past week, Frodo had retreated to his study for hours on end with only Huan for company. Whether he was writing in the Red Book or sitting lost in dark thoughts, Sam had no idea, for Frodo kept the door firmly shut, and did not invite Sam inside. 

Sam had stood in the hallway outside that closed door yesterday morning, wringing his hands in an agony of indecision, and wondering if he ought to take drastic measures, perhaps hammer on the wood with his fists until Frodo let him in. But in the end he turned and walked quietly away. He could not bring himself to do anything that might add to Frodo's distress. It was bad enough that Frodo was avoiding Sam's touch and glance as if they burned him.

If it wasn't for Huan, Sam was afraid that Frodo might have remained in his study from one dawn to the next. But the little whippet was able to rouse Frodo to action when nothing else could. They still walked the fields and lanes each afternoon, and Frodo tended to Huan's needs with his usual devotion, even while he neglected his own needs and ignored all Sam's attempts to care for him.

Huan was an unspeakable comfort to Sam. As difficult as matters were, they would have been a hundred times worse without Huan's uncomplicated presence. He was a welcome distraction when Sam and Frodo were together, for the silence might otherwise have been too dreadful to bear. But to Huan they both could speak, and relieve the awful tension that hung like a shroud over their once happy home.

Yet even Huan's bright spirit began to falter under the strain of the estrangement between the hobbits he loved. Two days' earlier, when Frodo had set Huan's supper bowl down on the floor, the whippet had sniffed his dinner in a dispirited manner, and averted his head as if the very scent of the succulent chicken swimming in broth made him nauseous. Frodo's reaction to this unprecedented behaviour from Huan had left Sam more worried than ever. 

_"What's wrong with Huan? Is he ill?" Frodo said in an almost frantic voice, dropping to his knees beside the little whippet, his hands fluttering over him like broken-winged butterflies._

_"Huan's not ill, Frodo," Sam answered quietly. He hesitated. "I reckon he knows you're upset-like, and he's worried..."_

_"Are you saying it's my fault he's not eating?" Frodo accused, and for a moment Sam thought he saw something almost like enmity in the depths of Frodo's eyes as he glared up at him._

_"Nay, I didn't mean-" Sam began in alarm, his stomach roiling, but Frodo turned his back to him and began feeding the chicken to Huan by hand, coaxing him bite by bite into eating his supper._

With a start, Sam realised that the kettle was boiling, steam pouring from the curved spout. He wrapped a dishtowel around the metal handle and lifted the kettle from the hook, and then filled the teapot, his movements slow and laboured. He wondered dully why he was even bothering to make a pot of tea; it wasn't as if he would be able to drink any of it, as sick as he felt. It was busy work, that was all: the simple need to keep to a routine, same as he had always tried to do during their travels. The truth was, he didn't know any other way to go on. He'd never been good with words, and his fumbling attempts to break through Frodo's silence only made matters worse. 

It was as if a wall as impervious as the smooth black stone of Orthanc had been built between him and Frodo during these past two weeks, and Sam could neither pierce it with understanding, nor find the right words to tear it down. And when he threw himself against that imaginary wall, he achieved nothing save to bruise his heart and mind. 

Sam wondered if Frodo might have confided to Huan some part at least of what was wrong, and suspected that he had. But Huan, intelligent dog though he was, had not been granted the grace to speak with words even once, much less thrice as had his namesake in a previous age. What secrets Huan knew, he kept willy-nilly. Sam would find no help in that quarter.

_If only Gandalf was here._  Sam felt a pang of longing for the short-tempered old wizard with his keen eyes and bristling brows.  _He'd know how to set things right with Frodo._  Only... when he'd left them on the borders of the Shire, nigh on a year ago, Gandalf had told them that his time was over, and the hobbits must handle their own affairs from now on.  _You are grown up now,_  he'd said.  _Grown indeed very high; among the great you are..._  

"Aye, among the great ninnyhammers you are, Sam Gamgee," Sam muttered aloud, rubbing his stinging eyes against his shirtsleeve, "letting Frodo get into such a state, and being of as much use as that table there to help him." 

_Least said, soonest mended_. Sam had believed in the wisdom of that timeworn phrase, one of many such that he'd learnt from his father, while Frodo had ever been one to keep his thoughts and intentions private, as Sam, the chief investigator of the little conspiracy formed by Merry and Pippin, knew all too well. Consequently, he and Frodo rarely talked to each other about their experiences on the Quest, especially those that had occurred in Mordor. 

Sam had never considered it necessary. He'd assumed he knew all he needed to about the harsh treatment Frodo had endured at the hands of the Orcs in Cirith Ungol. He had seen with his own eyes that dirty creature Snaga standing over his gentle master with raised whip, and the ugly whip weal that had disfigured Frodo's dear body. He'd assumed, too, that he knew all he needed to about the torment the Ring had caused Frodo, for Sam had carried the accursed thing, if only for a short while. Knowing all this, he could see no profit in dwelling on the past. It was over and done as far as he was concerned. 

But it was clear that for Frodo, unlike Sam, the past  _wasn't_  over and done. Sam, having asked no details of Frodo beyond what he'd seen for himself and what little information Frodo had volunteered, could only guess at the dark memories that were haunting his waking hours. 

_I oughtn't to have told him not to talk about it,_  he thought now with bitter regret.

A log shifted in the grate with a  _crack_  and a shower of red sparks. Sam started, and realised he was still holding the steaming kettle suspended in mid-air. He moved to place it on the hob, but just as he set it down on the warm bricks, he heard the familiar sound of Huan's toenails clicking on the wood floor of the hallway. Sam turned around to see Huan come into the kitchen- and to Sam's great surprise, Frodo was right behind him. 

But surprising as it was to see Frodo up and about an hour or so earlier than he normally rose, it was even more surprising to see him fully dressed, and for the out-of-doors, too, with his grey Lórien cloak fastened at his throat and a walking stick held in his left hand. 

He appeared pale and remote; there were blue-black smudges of exhaustion beneath his eyes, and fine lines bracketing his mouth. Those shadowed blue eyes did not quite meet Sam's as Frodo informed him without preamble, "I'm going out." 

"Out?" Sam wanted to protest, for though the sun was rising, it was barely light outside yet. The hoarfrost would be thick on the grass, slick and cold underfoot, and Frodo looked so desperately tired... But his resolution faltered before the set expression on Frodo's face. "Will- will you not let me go with you, Frodo?" Sam asked instead in a hesitant voice. "It won't take me but a moment to be ready."

"I don't need you tagging along," Frodo replied, and his voice was as chill as the frost outside.

"Then at least have a bite to eat before you go," Sam begged, trying to ignore the fierce stab of pain he felt at Frodo's hurtful words. "I've just made a pot of tea, and I can butter you some bread. You've not eaten proper these past few days, Frodo, and-"

"Stop fussing, Sam!" But the familiar words, long a private joke between them, were not spoken in the old, teasing manner. Frodo's voice held a tinge of anger now, and his brows were contracted into a black slash of annoyance. The fingers of his maimed hand clutched tightly at the glittering white gem that was hanging at his breast.

"I- I'm sorry..." Sam stammered, floundering in the face of this sudden outburst.

"And stop apologising," Frodo snapped. "Why must you be forever apologising?"

"I-" But Sam stopped himself before he foolishly apologised for apologising. He stood there with his hands dangling limply at his sides, helpless to do or say anything, for whatever he did or said seemed to anger this Frodo who was as a stranger to him. 

A spasm contorted Frodo's features for a moment, as if some struggle was being waged within him; a look of confusion appeared in his eyes, flickered briefly, and then vanished so quickly that Sam thought he must have imagined it. 

"I'm going," Frodo said again. "Huan, come."

And then the unthinkable happened: Huan did not respond to Frodo's call as he always had before. He remained frozen in place in an attitude of acute distress: his tail was tucked between his back legs, his ears were pinned back tightly to his skull, and he was crouching slightly with lowered head. Tremors rippled in tiny waves across the thin skin of his back and flanks. 

"Huan, I said 'come'," Frodo demanded sharply, striking the floor with the walking stick for emphasis. It was the first time Sam could ever recall Frodo speaking to Huan with anything less than the utmost gentleness and love, and he stared at Frodo in shock and dismay. 

Bewildered by Frodo's harsh tone, Huan shivered and cowered even lower. Then he looked at Sam as if begging him to do something about the frightening mood that had come over his master.

"Fine!" Frodo exclaimed, and there was an almost wild look in his eyes, as if this perceived abandonment had incensed him beyond all reason. His breast was heaving with agitation. "I'll go alone. Stay with Sam then. He's tried to take everything else from me- why not you, too?" And in a swirl of Elven grey, Frodo pivoted on his heel and strode out of the kitchen. 

A few moments later, a stricken Sam heard the distinctive  _snick_  of the front door closing; such a final sound. 

Frodo was gone.

***

_He's tried to take everything else from me- why not you, too?_

The unbelievable, awful words hung quivering in the silence left after Frodo's departure. In his mind's eye, Sam could still see the wild anger distorting Frodo's face as he spoke them, and the sweep of his cloak as he whirled to leave. 

"Frodo," Sam whispered brokenly to the empty doorway. "I don't understand."

It was simply too much to bear after the accumulated uncertainty and strain of the past days. A wave of dizziness swept over Sam then, leaving him sick and shaken, and he clung to the back of a chair, as if he sat once more in a rocking boat on the river Anduin. 

Almost, almost then did he give in to despair, yield to the desire to sink to the floor, bury his face in his hands and weep hot tears. But in a lonely pass high in the Mountains of Shadow, Sam had learnt that no amount of tears could restore hope to a shattered heart. And he was not the only one in pain right now.

Sam forced himself to release his grip on the chair back and move. On unsteady legs he went to Huan, who had remained standing near the door where Frodo had left him. He was shaking like a leaf.

"Huan, oh Huan," Sam said sorrowfully as he bent and picked the trembling dog up in his arms. He held Huan close against his breast, and bowed his head over him in grief. The whippet gave a low, forlorn whine, an echo of Sam's own pain and confusion, and pushed his muzzle into the crook of Sam's neck. "Hush now," Sam said, his throat tight. "Don't fret. It'll be all right, you'll see."

Still cradling Huan in his arms, Sam walked back to the kitchen table and sat down. "It'll be all right," he repeated in a shaky voice, knowing that they were possibly the most untrue words he had ever spoken. "He didn't mean it, Huan-lad. He didn't mean a word of it. I reckon Frodo's not himself right now, is all. When he comes home..." Sam's voice faltered, and he fell silent, for he dared not guess what Frodo's state of mind would be when he returned to Bag End, or whether he would still be in the grip of the strange mood that had led him to speak such hurtful words. "It'll be all right," he said once more, as if by saying it he could somehow make it come true. 

Outside, the sun was now climbing over the trees, and the kitchen was beginning to fill with light. He should put out the lantern, Sam thought vaguely, and start on his chores. But he didn't move. He sat on while the sun rose higher, gently running one hand along Huan's neck and back, over and over, in a soothing motion. Soft beneath the tips of Sam's fingers was the glossy fur that covered Huan's sleek muscles, a tribute to the loving care he received from Frodo, but there were patches, too, of bare skin where ugly scars remained, a permanent reminder of the cruelty that had been Huan's lot in life before Frodo found him and brought him home. 

How well Sam remembered that day, and Frodo, a fire of indignation lighting his fine eyes, telling him of his encounter with Wil Proudfoot outside the baker's shop in Bywater. In spite of his lifelong fear of dogs, Frodo had come to the defence of a despised, starving stray whom everyone else had thought worthless. 

He must hold to the image of that Frodo, strong and wise and compassionate, for surely he would return. He must.

Sam had always believed that Frodo and Huan had been meant to find each other that day outside the  _Green Dragon_. As much as Sam loved Huan, and was loved in return, he knew that the little whippet's heart, like Sam's, had been irrevocably given to Frodo, and that his proper place was by Frodo's side. And he knew that it was where Huan belonged now. Frodo should not be alone, a wanderer in the dark, and though it hurt deeply not to be the one by Frodo's side, Sam was too afraid of the consequences if he went after Frodo now. It might well cause more harm than good, the mood he was in. 

_Huan-lad, 'tis up to you to stay by him,_  he thought,  _as Huan stayed by Lúthien in that tale Frodo read to us._  Sighing, Sam sat up.

Under Sam's gentle care, Huan had calmed, and his trembling ceased. As Sam raised his head and straightened his shoulders, Huan stirred, struggling a little against the hobbit's hold on him. His dark eyes met Sam's and they were filled with purpose. Huan understood as well as Sam where he truly belonged. 

Sam loosened his hold, and Huan braced his paws on Sam's thighs and jumped lightly to the floor. He shook himself vigorously from nose to tail, and then trotted in a purposeful manner to the door. There he paused, looking back at Sam with rose ears raised and one front foot poised just above the ground. 

"I'm coming," Sam said, standing a little stiffly, and he could not suppress a small smile and lifting of his spirits at the sight of Huan's determined, even impatient, demeanour. 

Sam followed Huan to the front door and opened it to let the whippet outside, and stepped out onto the porch behind him. He stood there, blinking a little against the bright sunshine, amazed at how high the sun had already climbed. Had he been sitting in the kitchen that long? 

The air smelled crisp and clean, with a hint of apples and burning leaves. There were birds singing among the bushes and hedgerows, and a flock of sheep plaintively baaing as they were herded to pasture. The trees were a glory of green tinged with autumn gold and red, framed against a sky of purest blue. Down by the Bywater Pool, a heavy mist lingered, untouched yet by the sun's warmth, and as Sam watched, a flock of geese, honking, flew close above the white mist, and then rose slowly into the sky. The sight brought an ache to Sam's heart; they were preparing to leave the Shire as they did each autumn, but the geese at least would return. 

Sam blinked again but this time it was against a sudden rush of tears. Where was Frodo now? What was he thinking? Did he see any of the beauty of this fine day? Or was he too lost in darkness even to notice? Tears slid slowly down Sam's face to drip from his chin as he crouched beside Huan, and set a gentle hand at the base of his neck. "You find him, Huan," he said in a choked whisper, "and don't you leave him, nor let no harm come to him."

Huan gave a soft whine and licked Sam on his salty chin. Then he moved away, leaping down from the porch, and trotting off with his nose nearly touching the ground. Sam watched as Huan cast back and forth across the lawn a few times, using his keen sense of smell to find Frodo's scent on the wet grass, and then uttered a short, sharp bark that told Sam he'd found what he sought. Huan at once broke into a gallop and shot like a blue arrow, swift and true, across the garden toward the Party Field, following the trail of his beloved master. Sam's tear-blurred eyes remained fixed on Huan until his small, shimmering grey form vanished from sight at the bottom of the garden. 

"Watch over them, Lady," Sam breathed, wiping the tears from his face with his fingers, and then he turned and walked slowly back inside Bag End.

***

For the remainder of that morning and into the afternoon, Sam kept busy out-of-doors. He chopped wood and stacked it, and filled buckets of water from the well, setting them by the back door to carry in later. He prepared flowerbeds for their winter's sleep, and exposed tender plants in the kitchen garden that he'd covered against the nighttime frost. He raked leaves, and turned the compost pile. 

The smial had felt too still and quiet when he returned to the kitchen after Huan's departure, but Sam had made a fresh pot of tea and cooked some porridge, and forced himself to choke them down. And then he had fled outside, and worked now without ceasing, trying to lose himself in his labours, and not think about the meaning of Frodo's words, or what would happen when he returned. 

It was useless not to worry about Frodo, however, and worry hovered around Sam like a cloud of gnats, following him as he moved from task to task. But, though the worthies of Hobbiton, who already thought he and Frodo set far too much store by a mere dog, would no doubt conclude that he was as cracked as any Baggins, Sam had faith in Huan and his ability to guard Frodo from harm. 

Eventually Sam, pushed to the brink of exhaustion by his labours after days of little to no sleep, returned inside. The weather had proved unusually hot for early October, and the cool dimness of Bag End felt welcome. If only it didn't also feel so terribly empty, Sam thought as he washed and dried his feet just inside the back door. Huan was usually there to greet him when he came in from his chores, and would demonstrate his delight by dancing joyfully in a small circle, his nails tapping and his tail wagging furiously. Frodo would be close behind him, smiling warmly and ready with a hug and a kiss, and a glass of something cold for Sam to drink. 

But now all was silent, with not even an echo of those beloved presences. Was this how it had felt to Frodo during the months after Bilbo had left? Sam, growing up in Number Three, had often wished that he could move about the cramped hole without bumping elbows with his brothers and sisters. But now he looked back and realised how very lucky he had been. For Bag End was really no better than the poorest smial in Hobbiton: without a loving family living there, even such a patchwork one as he and Frodo had formed, it was nothing more than a cold and empty hole in the ground.

Shivering a little, Sam dropped the damp towel in a basket, and headed for the bedroom. He was covered in sweat and streaked with dirt, and he needed a more thorough washing up and a change of clothing. 

The first thing he saw when he entered the room was Frodo's discarded nightshirt, crumpled on the carpet. The bed was unmade, though the covers appeared too little disarranged, a reflection of the awful stillness with which he and Frodo had lain there during the night. Sam stooped to pick up the nightshirt, the soft, well-washed lawn catching a little on the rough places on the pads of his fingers. The scent of Frodo, a scent unlike anything else in Middle-earth, rose to his nostrils. Greedy for more, Sam buried his face in the bunched up cloth clenched between his hands, and breathed deeply. 

Was this the last time he would enjoy such a luxury? When he returned home, would Frodo banish him from their bed, or even from Bag End itself? Was he to be exiled to Number Three and all of this- this wonderful, blessed life that he had never been quite certain he deserved- to become a thing of the past? 

Sam's shoulders began to heave as he finally admitted to the fear that had been growing on him all day, ever since Frodo uttered those terrible words. Fear that Frodo's strange dark mood had led him to reveal a secret resentment that he had been harbouring and hiding from Sam. Fear that that uneasy sensation he had felt sitting in the chair that had been reserved for Bilbo had been justified all along.  _You don't belong here, Samwise Gamgee._

_But I didn't mean to overstep my place,_  Sam pleaded silently as if Frodo stood before him, an accusing stare upon his face,  _truly I didn't, nor presume too much._  It wasn't Bag End or the position of Master that Sam wanted. He didn't want to steal Huan's love or anything else from Frodo. It was only Frodo he wanted, a Frodo healed and whole, even if it meant...

_Oh Frodo..._. Sam sank onto the end of the bed, and then, too exhausted to fight any more, he gave in, and was taken by a storm of tears. 

But the storm passed, as all such storms do, leaving Sam calmer and more clear-headed than he had felt in days. He lowered the tear-damp nightshirt to his lap, and took a deep, shuddering breath.

Before his mind's eye, a vision rose: Frodo as he had appeared in the tower of Cirith Ungol, his naked body clothed in flame. He heard once more the words Frodo had uttered when Sam had hesitated to burden him with the terrible weight of the Ring:  _Give it me at once! You can't have it!_  and then,  _No you won't, you thief!_  He remembered the fear and enmity in Frodo's eyes as he reached out and snatched the Ring from Sam's hand, as if he saw not Sam Gamgee kneeling before him, but some greedy Orc intent on robbing him of his precious. 

_There are two masters in Bag End now, my dearest Sam,_  Frodo had said. Would he have said that, would he have spoken so lovingly, if he truly thought Sam was hoping to usurp his place?  _Sam Gamgee, you're a fool._  This had naught to do with him getting ideas above his station, or with Frodo thinking he had designs on Bag End. He had allowed his own pitiful fears to lead him astray. 

No, Frodo had been referring to that accursed  _thing_  that had tried Its best to overcome Frodo and had nearly succeeded. And though in the end It had been destroyed, it seemed that the memory of It and the desire for It still haunted Frodo, far more than Sam had ever imagined. 

"But why now?" Sam whispered to the silent room. "Why should it have to happen now, when we were so happy?" And it was only then that Sam recalled that the date was October the sixth. Two years before on this day it was dark in the dell under Weathertop.   



	2. A Wanderer in the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frodo wanders, lost in the memories of the past, and only Huan can save him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angst ahoy...

_Early Winterfilth, 1420_

Anger propelled Frodo out the front door of Bag End, across the garden and into the fields at a run. Anger that robbed him of all sense of direction or even of purpose; Frodo knew only that he must get away.

It was instinct that guided Frodo's feet safely along paths he had trod many times in the past, for he had no real awareness of his surroundings or of the fine autumn day. He was moving through a thick haze of swirling grey mist that had been gradually enshrouding him, turning the world around him as cold and remote as the fog on the Barrow-downs had once done. Memories and emotions were so distorted by the mist that he could no longer tell whether they came from the present or the past. 

_He wants It. He will take It if he can. You can trust no one, not even him._  The words thrummed through his brain in time with the frantic beating of his pulse as he ran blindly onward. Eventually Frodo could run no farther and he slowed to a walk, gasping for breath, one arm wrapped around his aching middle. But as his breathing steadied, so, too, did his wits. Flashes of memory returned to him, words he'd spoken in the heat of his unreasoning anger.

_He's tried to take everything else from me- why not you, too?_  

Had he really said such words,  _shouted_  them, at Sam? But no, it hadn't been Sam at all, but a foul, greedy-eyed orc, leering and pawing at him, lusting after the Ring...  _If it's too hard a job, I could share it with you, maybe?_  the orc offered in a sly voice. 

_He wants It. He will take It if he can. You can trust no one, not even him_... and then,  _He will kill you and take It._

_Not Sam, not Sam, not Sam_  

Frodo stumbled on through mist and shadow, directionless, while slowly the terrible anger began to drain away, leaving behind confusion and numbness in its wake. He had been angry, so very, very angry. But why, and at whom? Not at Sam. Surely not at his dear Sam. 

But then, for one brief moment, Frodo could see clearly in his mind's eye Sam's white stricken face... and Huan, cowering down in fear... fear of Frodo...

_Oh, what have I done?_

"Huan?" Frodo said aloud, halting and peering desperately into the darkness, but there was no answer; Huan's place at his side was empty. With dread, Frodo recalled a rainy day not long past, and Huan running ahead of him, nearly invisible in the gloom. He'd feared then that Huan might become lost in the shadow land that lurked in wait wherever Frodo turned... 

"Huan! Where are you?" he cried, his voice sounding high and thin with panic. But Huan did not come bounding back to Frodo this time to press up warm and real against his legs. No ray of sun pierced the grey shroud of mist. "Oh Huan... where are you?" 

But all was silent and chill, chill as the inside of a wight's barrow.  _Cold be hand and heart and bone..._  A cold, horrible murmur seemed to rise out of the very earth, and set Frodo to running once more, fleeing from the memories that had stirred to life in the darkness, returning to haunt him.

Abruptly, Frodo's toe caught on some unseen obstacle, and he toppled forward with a cry, going down hard on his hands and knees. The walking stick he carried fell from his numb fingers. Shaking his head to clear it as he rested on all fours, he focused his bleary eyes and saw a tangled web of gnarled tree roots sticking up out of the ground. He had wandered all unknowing from the path and in among the trees. 

Too weary to climb back to his feet, Frodo crawled forward, over decaying leaves pungent of mold and sharp-capped acorns that bit into his knees and the palms of his hands. At the base of a large oak tree, he curled, shivering, against the bole, wishing there was an opening into which he could escape and find shelter, as he and Sam and Pippin had once done- but that seemed a lifetime ago now. He felt too exposed sitting here, and imagined that eyes, cold and pitiless, watched him from the shadows.  _Come to us_ , they seemed to say.

Pain lanced through Frodo's left shoulder then, as though he'd been stabbed by a shard of glittering ice, and he clutched at it with his right hand while a deathly chill spread slowly down from his shoulder into his arm. Those watching eyes, he realised, shrinking back with dread, they belonged to the Ringwraiths and their fell Captain.  _Soon you will be one of us,_  a sibilant whisper echoed in his brain.

_Never, never. You shall have neither the Ring nor me!_

Frodo's maimed hand flew desperately to his breast. It encountered not a flawless smooth circle of solid gold, however, but the sharp-edged facets of a white gemstone. About his neck hung not the Ring, but the Queen's star-gem. Frodo closed his fingers tightly around the white stone, welcoming the bite of pain it brought, and felt the pitiless eyes begin to retreat. The Ring was destroyed, and the Dark Lord and his Ringwraiths were no more. They had no power over him now; they were gone forever. 

But his shoulder ached so, and the chill lingered in his arm. 

_I am wounded, wounded; it will never really heal._

He was filled with a sudden, desperate longing for the strength and tenderness of Sam's arms around him, for the loving warmth of Huan's small body curled up at his side. But he had driven them both away and now he was alone...  _It is gone, gone, and all is dark and empty..._  Frodo bowed his head as black despair swept over him.

_You fool, Frodo Baggins._  A bitter little voice came to life inside him.  _Did you really think you would find healing and a life with Sam in the Shire? A year is a long time, Merry said, but he was wrong. It is a mere blink of the eye when a dreadful choice lies before you, and you have deceived the one you love with your silence. What will become of him if you choose the Straight Path and a ship into the West? What will you be leaving him in your selfishness?_  

Out of the swirling confusion of his thoughts, one rose painfully but inexorably to the surface:  _Aren't you the one who has taken everything from Sam?_  

***

_Rosie Cotton's dark eyes are filled with sorrow as she watches Sam dancing with his sister May at the Midsummer Free Fair. Frodo knows what she has hoped for since Sam returned home in the previous autumn. But Frodo has seen the hope that once shone in her eyes slowly fade as the weeks and months pass. The question Sam hesitated to ask her before he left the Shire with Frodo is one he no longer can or will ask. He is not the same Sam Gamgee who went away on an improbable quest, determined to see it through to whatever end might await him and his master. In the crucible of Orodruin and on the long hard road that led them there, he and Frodo had been utterly changed, and their lives and hearts bound to each other. It is, in the end, Frodo who has asked and Sam who has done the answering._

***

_"Here, let me take Bell," Sam says, lifting the fussing baby from Marigold's arms. "You sit back and relax and finish your tea, Mari. She'll settle right quick if I walk her about for a bit." Sam rests the infant against his broad shoulder, one gentle hand cradling the back of her head. He rocks her a little as he paces back and forth across the sunlit kitchen, crooning nonsense into her curly golden hair. Within a few minutes, Bell is peacefully sleeping, a tiny fist pressed against her rosebud mouth._

_"Oh Sam, you do have a way with little 'uns," Marigold exclaims. "What a wonderful father you will make..." She breaks off, giving Frodo an uneasy look, and an awkward silence falls over the kitchen._

_"I reckon I'll have to settle for being a wonderful uncle, Mari," Sam says with a determinedly cheerful smile, but Frodo feels as if an icy hand is squeezing his heart._

***

_"There are two masters in Bag End now, my dearest Sam," Frodo says, and kisses Sam warmly on the cheek. But he can sense Sam's unease at sitting in Bilbo's place at the table, at being the one waited upon instead of the one waiting upon others. Frodo can tell the knowledge that their guests are watching such intimacy unsettles Sam; he feels tense beneath Frodo's fingertips where they rest lightly upon his shoulders. Will he ever truly come to accept Bag End as his home? Frodo wonders sadly._

***

The kaleidoscope of memories flashed through Frodo's mind, the same memories that had haunted him ever since the Birthday, when his apprehensions about what might happen on the anniversary of Weathertop, especially after his illness a year ago and again in March, began to prey at his mind. As the anniversary of that terrible day grew nearer and nearer, these apprehensions became his constant companion; a growing fear took hold of Frodo that Sam would come to regret his choice to forsake marriage and children for a life with one so wounded and in need of care. 

Hope for healing had faded as the shadows inside Frodo grew and began to shut out all light. Worse than any other torment was the guilt that Frodo felt. Guilt for lying to Sam by omission and keeping from him the full of Queen Arwen's words to him in Minas Tirith; guilt for binding Sam to him, instead of pushing him into the willing, waiting arms of Rosie Cotton as he ought to have done. If Sam had known the truth- that Frodo might one day pass into the West- would he have chosen differently? Would Frodo have been the one watching with sorrowful eyes as Sam danced with Rosie at their wedding?

As the days passed, wracked by fear and guilt, exhausted beyond measure, Frodo had begun to shut himself away from Sam, rejecting Sam's every attempt to break through his silence, his every offer of comfort and love. And at the last, turning on him in unreasoning anger... The memory of that morning and the horrible, hurtful things he had said flashed through his mind, vivid and painful.  _Oh Sam, what have I done?_  he thought again.

But maybe it was best this way, Frodo reasoned dully. Maybe the only answer was to push Sam away now, while there was still a chance for him to turn to one who could give him the happy, uncomplicated life he deserved. One who did not hear the crash of waves and the cries of sea birds in his dreams, or wake sweat-soaked and trembling from nightmares of torment at the hands of orcs.

But deep inside Frodo, in that small fragile part of himself that remained yet untouched by the shadows, he knew beyond doubting that Sam still held true to the words he had spoken to Gildor that long ago night in the Woody End.  _Leave him! I never mean to. I am going with him, if he climbs to the Moon..._  

_Or sails to the West? Will you follow me even then, my Sam?_

And there, huddled at the foot of an ancient oak tree many miles from home, Frodo faced at last his deepest shame and greatest fear, the one he had not dared voice even to the little whippet whose silent sympathy had been such an unexpected blessing in his life: that in the selfishness of his need and love, he would lack the strength to deny Sam if he asked to go over Sea with Frodo, and would allow Sam to abandon his family and his beloved Shire and leave Middle-earth forever.

"Forgive me, Sam, forgive me for my weakness and for needing you so," he whispered in anguish. But only mocking laughter greeted his words, and he felt the pitiless, cold eyes watching him once more from the shadows. Almost he could see the iron crown on the pale King's silver helm, the glowing sword held aloft in his gauntleted hand as he prepared to attack Frodo and wrest the Ring from him by force.

_I must keep moving. I must not let him have It._  

Frodo climbed unsteadily to his feet, clinging to the tree trunk for support, digging his fingers into the crevasses in the rough bark as he pulled himself upward, his left arm aching fiercely. He rested there for a moment, panting hard and gathering his strength, and then pushed himself away from the tree, and set out once more through the misty, shadow-filled darkness. Only this time, though he knew it not, instinct set his feet on a path toward home, back to Sam and Huan.

***

Time lost all meaning for Frodo as he struggled wearily on. It required a monumental effort of his will now simply to raise one foot and set it down in front of the other. But he would not stop, in despite of exhaustion, light-headedness and the pain in his wounded shoulder, or the deadly laughter that dogged his footsteps and mocked his puny efforts to escape his doom.

And then, at some point in his endless grey march, Frodo became aware of a presence at his side. Strangely, he did not sense any threat from it; on the contrary, as it stayed steadfastly by him, measuring its small steps to his own, it seemed to radiate light and warmth, a beacon in the darkness as the Lady's star-glass once had been. Frodo felt a small measure of strength seep into his tired bones, and a corresponding strengthening of his will to go on. 

A stray word crept into the confusion of his mind then:  _Huan_. "H-huan," he faltered, and heard as from a distance a low whine that he vaguely recognised.  _Huan. It is Huan. He hasn't been lost after all._  The knowledge fled away as Frodo drifted back into a delirium of exhaustion and pain, but the small bright presence remained close by his side, and, could Frodo have but realised it, steadied his faltering steps at need, and ever and anon turned dark eyes filled with love up to him as if to say, 'I'm here now, and I'll keep you from harm'. 

But Frodo was too lost in the swirling grey mist to do more than walk blindly on until, without warning, he was abruptly forced to halt, as if he'd reached the end of a tether. There was something preventing him from moving forward, holding him in place by the edge of his cloak. Frodo gave a weak tug, trying to free the fine grey material from whatever had snagged it, but to no avail: he was caught fast, trapped. Turning to discover the cause, he saw to his surprise that the culprit was no tree branch or thorn bush, nor some dark creature from the shadows, but a small grey dog. He held the hem of Frodo's cloak tightly between clenched jaws, and was leaning backward with all his strength, paws digging into the soft ground. 

"What are you doing?" Frodo whispered in confusion. "Why..." Some instinct made him turn forward once more, and then he saw it, but a few paces ahead: a pool of water, still, cold and dark. He had been walking straight toward it, unaware of the danger, and had the dog not prevented him, Frodo would have stepped over the sheer edge, and even now the chill dark waters would be closing over his head.

Frodo stood then as one mesmerised, staring at the still water with morbid fascination, and suddenly his hands, almost of their own volition, began to stray toward the leaf brooch at his throat. It would be so easy, he thought dreamily, as a soft-voiced, seductive suggestion insinuated itself into his mind. All he had to do was unfasten the cloak and let it drop, and then he would be free to continue on... to step off the edge and let the dark water take him as it had taken his parents... to find at last an end to his pain in its quiet cold embrace... 

But before his fingers could even touch the brooch, his companion had let go of the cloak and moved swiftly to stand in front of him. Frodo's attention was pulled away from the water, and held captive by a pair of watchful dark eyes; it was as if the dog had read Frodo's mind. The dog made a sound low in his throat, and crouched slightly, muscles taut and ready to spring into motion. Every hair stood up along his neck and back.

For a long, tense moment, they stared at each other, hobbit and dog, and then with a cry, Frodo sprang backward, away from the terrible dark water, aghast at his own behaviour. What madness had come over him? What had he been about to do?

Horror filled Frodo at the nearness of his escape. He sank to his knees, covering his face with his shaking hands. "Huan," he gasped, as memory returned in a rush, and understanding dawned. "Oh Huan, you..." But then a great wave of dizziness swept over him, and he fell face downward onto the ground. 

_You saved my life._

The last thing Frodo was aware of before the darkness took him completely was a dog's frantic whine, and a paw scrabbling desperately at his sleeve.


	3. The Love of a Dog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _When Frodo Baggins's little dog with the queer-sounding name appeared in the common-room of the Green Dragon and started barking up a storm, an uneasy hush fell over the hobbits gathered there._

_Early Winterfilth, 1420_

When Frodo Baggins's little dog with the queer-sounding name appeared in the common-room of the  _Green Dragon_  and started barking up a storm, an uneasy hush fell over the hobbits gathered there. It wasn't so much the fact of his barking that silenced them, though that was unusual enough, for the dog was normally quiet as a mouse when his master brought him into the inn. No, it was the fact that he was quite alone. 

Oh, to be sure there were times that Mr. Frodo was seen without his whippet following close at his heels like a small grey shadow, but no one could  _ever_  recall seeing the dog without his master or Sam Gamgee beside him. Not since Mr. Frodo had taken in the stray all them months ago, leastways. 

Apprehensive glances were exchanged among the hobbits as they abandoned their seats to cluster around the dog; there wasn't a one of them, listening to his insistent barking, who didn't suspect the worst.

Over in a corner, Tom Cotton and his sons Jolly and Nibs, pipes and beers in hand, were relaxing by the fire before heading home to begin their evening chores. The farmer, when he heard the loud noise that cut through the conversation like a knife, recognised it for Huan's bark at once, for Mr. Frodo's dog was a regular and welcome visitor to his farm. But he didn't like the sound of that bark, not one bit, and got to his feet, a frown creasing his brow. 

Tom looked across the room and immediately spotted the little whippet standing just inside the door. "Eh, I don't like this none," he said half to himself, half to his sons. "Summat's wrong, or my name's not Tom Cotton. We'd best go see what's to do."

He made his way across the room with Jolly and Nibs, and pushed through the curious hobbits forming a half circle around Huan. The dog, having got their undivided attention, had stopped barking, but he was exhibiting yet more queer behaviour. He turned toward the door as if intending to leave the room, but then turned back again as if he'd changed his mind. He did this not once, but several times. A few of the hobbits at the forefront of the group crouched down, and tried to entice Huan to them. They spoke to him in coaxing voices, but the whippet was having none of them, and stayed well out of their reach. 

"What d'ye reckon's the matter with him?" asked Toby Brownlock, the innkeeper, scratching his head in bewilderment and sitting back on his heels. "D'ye think he's gone mad?" There was a murmur of concern, and some of the hobbits edged back from the dog, for the water phobia was a dangerous and dreaded disease. "I heard scratching at the front door and when I opened it to see who was there, he bolted inside, quick as a wink. I hope I ain't done summat foolish."

"Nay, nay," said another, "he's not foaming at the mouth nor trying to attack us."

"'Course he ain't," said Tom in a no-nonsense voice as he came forward. "That dog's no more sick than I am, Toby. There's summat has got him upset. The question is, what?" 

The crowd respectfully made way for the farmer, who knelt down in front of Huan and said quietly, "What's wrong, Huan? Is it Mr. Frodo?" Huan gave a low whine at the sound of his master's name. Tom held out his hand, fingers curled into a loose fist, and added, "You know you can trust me, lad. I'll not hurt you."

There were indeed few hobbits besides Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee whom Huan trusted; Farmer Cotton was one of them. But despite that, Tom had no better luck coaxing Huan to him than anyone else, and was forced to admit defeat after several attempts. Huan appeared almost apologetic, flattening his ears slightly while the tip of his tail stirred, but he remained resolutely out of reach.

"I'm flummoxed," Tom said ruefully, withdrawing his hand, and another quiet murmur passed through the crowd. "He'll usually come right to me. O'course, that's when Sam or Mr. Frodo is with him."

This time the words 'Mr. Frodo' caused Huan to bark, a sharp, imperative bark; then he danced back a few paces and once again he turned as if to leave the room. But he stopped just over the threshold and looked back over his shoulder. His impatience with these hobbits, so slow of comprehension, was clear in the expression of his dark eyes, and the tilt of his head. 

"He wants us to follow him, dad," said Jolly suddenly, the light dawning.

Tom slapped himself on the forehead. "Bless me if you ain't right, Jolly. Don't know why I didn't see it for myself." He climbed slowly to his feet, his aging joints creaking a little in protest as he straightened. "Toby, would you fetch us a lantern? We don't know where he means to take us, and it'll be dark out before long."

Within a very few minutes old Tom, Jolly and Nibs were hurrying down the front steps of the  _Dragon_  after Huan. Nearly every other hobbit at the Inn came along, too, for no one wished to miss out on the excitement. The whippet seemed to know exactly where he was going: he did not hesitate but headed south along the Bywater Road. He went but a short distance on the road, however, before turning left and heading east, trotting along a narrow dirt path that ran parallel to the Bywater Pool. 

He skirted the edge of the Pool at its shallow southerly end, where the water birds sheltered among the rustling brown reeds and the hobbit children splashed and played in the warm weather, and crossed the bridge that spanned the Water just below the spot where the Pool emptied into the river. Huan then turned right, and followed the course of the Water south and east as it twisted and turned on its way toward Buckland. 

The fine warm day hadn't held; grey clouds that had massed on the horizon earlier were now scudding in on a knife-edged northeast wind that had sprung up. The sun was beginning its descent behind the hills in the west, and the shadows were lengthening. Once the spreading clouds obscured the sun, dusk would fall swiftly, and the temperature would fall with it.

Still, the hobbits jogging after their canine guide were soon in varying stages of sweating, swearing and labouring for breath. Huan, trotting swiftly and effortlessly, was leading them at a relentless pace, ever and anon glancing back over his shoulder as if to say 'Hurry, hurry'.

After leading them approximately a mile along the Water, Huan suddenly broke into a gallop. So fleet of foot was the whippet that he quickly distanced himself from the following hobbits, much to their dismay. 

There was an exclamation of "We'll lose him!" from someone at the back of the group, but those at the front could soon make out what had caused Huan to hurry ahead: the figure of a hobbit lying face downwards upon the ground, perhaps a dozen paces from the edge of the river. A stray ray of sunshine fell across his still form, bathing it in golden light; they would have been hard-pressed otherwise to see him, so well concealed was he both by the cloak he wore and the surrounding vegetation that created a sort of screen around this spot on the riverbank.

"It's Mr. Frodo!" Tom exclaimed, and with no thought for his weary legs broke into run, hurrying toward the fallen hobbit.

But he came to an abrupt halt about fifteen feet away, and flung his arms wide to keep the others back. "Don't go no further," he said quickly, his eyes fixed on Huan.

The whippet had run straight to Frodo, and taken up a position standing protectively over him, and in that instant he had been transformed. Far from welcoming the hobbits he had led here, presumably to aid his fallen master, he was facing them now with hackles raised and a growl rumbling deep in his chest. There was no mistaking the seriousness of his intent, and the hobbits held back, not needing Tom's warning in the face of the sharp canine teeth that gleamed whitely as Huan curled back his upper lip.

"What's wrong with him, dad?" Nibs asked his father, baffled by Huan's unexpected behaviour, so completely out of character for the quiet, gentle dog they both knew. 

"I don't rightly know, Nibs, but it's plain as a pikestaff he don't want us any nearer to Mr. Frodo."

"You don't think Mr. Frodo might be- be... dead, do you?" Nibs whispered, and from the somber looks of the others, it was clear that this same idea had occurred to almost everyone else. 

Tom looked grave and thoughtful as he stroked his chin. "I can't believe Huan would be keeping us away from Mr. Frodo if he was dead," he said after a few moments. "There'd be no point to it, now would there. No, I reckon Mr. Frodo's only swooned."

"Well, swooned or dead, we can't leave Mr. Frodo a-lying there in the dirt, Tom," argued Nick Hogpen. "It ain't proper, him being the Master and all." There was a chorus of agreement. "Any road, that dog can't stop the lot of us if we go at the same time. Come on, lads." And he made a sudden motion as if to shoulder past the farmer.

"Stop!" Tom said angrily, and obedient to a quick motion of their father's head, Jolly and Nibs stepped in front of Nick Hogpen and blocked his path. "Huan knows what he's about, Nick," Tom said, still keeping his gaze fixed on the whippet. "If he don't want us to touch Mr. Frodo, I reckon there's a good reason for it." 

At that moment, as if roused by the sound of their voices, the unconscious hobbit stirred, moaning slightly as he moved his arms. Then he braced himself on his hands, and with difficulty, as if he was somehow weighted down, raised his head. He peered at the hobbits through narrowed eyes as if he saw them but dimly or from a great distance. 

"Mr. Frodo," began Tom, but never finished what he meant to say, for he was unexpectedly cut off.

"Stay back," Frodo cried out in a shrill voice to their shock and surprise. He groped feebly at his side with his left hand as though in search of something. "You shan't have it. Stay back, I say!" 

But then he slumped back down on the ground as if he'd lost consciousness once more. He did not move, even when Huan, with a soft whine, touched him gently on the cheek with his nose.

"I reckon you was right, Tom," said Nick in a low voice, sounding apologetic. "That dog  _does_  know what he's about. Why, Mr. Frodo didn't seem like he even knew who we was."

"I don't think he did." Tom recalled a day last March when he had discovered Frodo Baggins lying on his bed holding on to that white gem he always wore, and pale as if he'd seen a ghost.  _It is gone for ever, and now all is dark and empty_ , he'd said, and the way he'd said it had sent a chill through Tom. 

The farmer sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "Mr. Frodo has a mort of bad memories from his travels, seemingly. I reckon they still plague him from time to time."

"But what are we going to do?" Jolly asked worriedly. "Nick's right, dad; we can't leave him lying there like that. It ain't proper."

"What we're going to do is fetch Sam Gamgee from Bag End quick as may be," replied Tom. "He's the only one Huan will let next or nigh to Mr. Frodo, and I reckon that's exactly what Huan's waiting for us to do."

The good sense of this suggestion was apparent to everyone, and it was quickly settled that Jolly would be the one to ride up to Bag End, and he would take Sam's own pony from the stables at the  _Ivy Bush_  rather than waste time detouring to South Lane for one of the farm ponies. Jolly didn't linger, but set out at a run back the way they'd come, and was soon out of sight.

Silence fell in the wake of his departure. The hobbits were subdued, for this adventure was turning out to be nothing at all like they had expected, and Frodo Baggins was a sad and pitiful sight. Huan, apparently satisfied that they had no intention of going near his master, had curled up by Frodo's side and seemed to understand that he must now be patient and wait. But the whippet remained on his guard, and if any of the hobbits as they moved about ventured too near Frodo, he would raise his head and fix them with a warning stare, as if there was some invisible line they might not cross.

Before very long, however, the hobbits began to talk among themselves, discussing Mr. Frodo's strange words, and what they might mean. "Cracked, just like old Mr. Bilbo, if you ask me," said one. "Never been right since he come back from them foreign parts," said another. Farmer Cotton, listening to the low-voiced conversation around him, had little patience with idle gossip and a great fondness for Frodo, and spoke up in no uncertain terms. 

"Mr. Frodo ain't cracked, no more'n Mr. Bilbo was," he said flatly. "He lived in my home for nigh on six months, and I reckon I'd know if he was." He looked around him and caught each hobbit's eyes in turn. "And you'll oblige me by not repeating any more such nonsense in my hearing, or if you must talk, take yourselves off and say it in private. Now, as it's like to take some time for Jolly and Sam to arrive, I'm going to have a sit down. I suggest you do the same." 

The hobbits, chastened by the farmer's rebuke, did just that. They sat cross-legged in a small circle on the soft turf, and listened for the first sound that might betoken Jolly's return with Sam Gamgee. Few words were spoken, and those in hushed tones and with wary glances at old Tom. 

The swift-moving clouds had spread and covered nearly all the sky now, and the twilight was gathering. After a time, they decided to light the lantern they had brought with them, and welcomed its cheerful glow, for none could ever recall being part of such a strange, almost fantastical scene, for Mr. Frodo continued to lie unmoving as one dead with his faithful dog by his side.

And the dark eyes of Huan gleamed in the fading light as he watched and waited for Sam.

***

Sam paced across the garden with anxious footsteps, his even more anxious gaze roving over the far-flung fields and lanes for any sign of Frodo and Huan. But nothing moved save the clouds overhead, grey and ominous, and the sun, beginning to sink behind the hills in the west. Sam's heart sank with it. There would be rain by morning, he thought, and the air was growing noticeably cooler. It would not be a fit night for anyone to be caught out of doors.

"Sam Gamgee, you great ninnyhammer," he said aloud for the hundreth time at least since the scales had dropped from his eyes and he'd remembered with horror what day this was. How could he have been so thoughtlessly blind as to have forgot that today was October the sixth, and what that date signified for Frodo? 

But the truth was, he didn't have to look far for the answer: it was because he'd wanted to forget, that's why. He'd wanted only to put the memory of Weathertop, and Frodo's suffering on the journey to Rivendell, behind him- along with every other painful memory of the Quest. 

"And that's why you're in such a pickle," he added in a mutter. "Thinking it would be so easy to forget it all, to leave it all behind. Ninnyhammer. You ought never to have let Frodo leave Bag End, Sam Gamgee, and you wouldn't have, if you'd only kept your head."

_And exactly how did you plan to stop him, then? Tie him up? The state he was in, he'd like to have gone mad if you'd tried it._

Like the millwheel on the Water, his thoughts went round and round, and he found himself plagued by indecision as he had been once before- but  _that_ was a memory that truly was best kept at bay. Should he go after Frodo, Sam wondered, but in which direction? After so many hours away, Frodo could be anywhere, and Sam was no Ranger like Strider who could track someone by the bending of a single blade of grass. Should he rouse the Shirriffs, and organize a search party? But he could not imagine anything worse for Frodo than to have a group of hobbits come upon him unexpectedly at such a time, when he was lost in dark memories and might not recognise friend from foe. 

_He has Huan with him_ , Sam reminded himself, also for the hundreth time, though he could hardly explain even to himself why he had such unshakeable faith in Huan. Yet hadn't Huan rescued Lúthien from Nargothrond? Had he not battled even Sauron himself and caused him to flee so that Lúthien might rescue Beren from his imprisonment? Sam and Frodo had read to each other many times the tales of Huan's valour and devotion, in the months since their own Huan had come to live with them. It had seemed to Sam, though he'd hesitated to voice the fancy aloud even to Frodo, that Huan always listened with interest to their reading, as if he understood the words as well as they did. 

And, sobering though the thought was, Sam knew that if it came right to it, Huan would give his very life for Frodo as the great Hound of Valinor had given his for Lúthien.

Restless, but with no outlet for his restlessness, for it was impossible even to pretend to set his hand to any work now, Sam took another quick turn about the garden.  _Oh Frodo, Frodo, forgive your Sam._  And these words, too, he had repeated in the hours since Frodo left- but a thousand times at least.

Creeping fingers of darkness were reaching across the grass, and the rising wind was whipping through the trees, causing the branches to creak and groan. Falling leaves blew past Sam, swirling through the air, bright streaks of gold, crimson and scarlet. 

_I'll need to be raking soon_ , Sam thought, and recalled days long past when he and his sisters and the Cotton children would rake up great piles of leaves and then run like mad things and leap into them, or toss armfuls in the air and laugh with giddy delight as they rained down around them. 

Those days were forever gone, and autumn for Sam now was inextricably bound up with the pain of leaving home and the pain of returning to a Shire devastated by the evil wrought by Saruman and his Men. But Mr. Bilbo and Frodo both had always loved this time of year better than any other, and Frodo had said once to Sam that he thought more kindly of journeying when the autumn came. 

_You mustn't think on that_ , Sam lectured himself sternly.

And then over the wind's susurration he heard another sound: galloping hooves. They were echoing up the Hill Lane, growing louder and louder, and he could hear a voice shouting his name. In a flash, Sam was racing to the garden gate. He didn't even bother to open it, but simply set one hand atop it and vaulted over. He pelted down the stone-flagged path like one possessed and into the lane, just in time to meet the arriving pony and rider. 

He barely had time to register that the pony sliding to a halt on his haunches was his very own Bill, for the rider, Jolly Cotton, gasped, "Oh thank Eru you're here. You're needed, Sam."

"Is it Frodo?" Sam asked, though in his heart he already knew the answer. 

"Aye," Jolly replied, his normally cheerful face unwontedly grave.

Sam was at Jolly's stirrup in an instant, wordlessly reaching up. Jolly grasped his wrist firmly, while Sam set his foot atop Jolly's and swung lightly up to sit behind the cantle on Bill's broad, warm back. He wrapped his arms around Jolly's middle, and in an instant they were off, Jolly's heels digging into Bill's sides, urging him at once into a gallop. This was an indignity to Bill that Sam would normally not have let pass even with such an old friend as Jolly, but he had no thought for anyone or anything in that moment but Frodo and reaching him as quickly as possible.

Bill fairly flew down the lane, as if understanding Sam's urgency, and the wind was a rushing roar that snatched at Sam's shouted words, "Where are we going?"

But Jolly heard him over the wind and the clatter of Bill's hooves on the hard ground. "The Water, below the Bywater Pool." Sam's arms tightened convulsively around his waist, and Jolly understood. "I didn't mean... Mr. Frodo ain't drownded, Sam. He's alive."

Sam's heart subsided from his throat, and horrible images of pale dead faces with weed-laced hair staring up with unseeing eyes through the murky water of the Dead Marshes faded from his mind. He felt a nearly overpowering urge to strangle Jolly for scaring him so, but it wasn't his fault. "Never mind. Just ride, Jolly. Hurry."

Bill knew this road like the back of his hoof, and made good time even with his double burden. Yet it seemed to Sam almost as if they were moving in slow motion, even as they galloped through Hobbiton, along the Bywater Pool and past the  _Green Dragon_ , the warm light streaming from its windows. The pony clattered loudly over the wooden bridge across the Water, and onto the path that ran alongside the winding river. In the grey twilight a tiny dot of yellow light appeared between Bill's pricked ears, growing steadily larger and brighter as they neared it.

"We're almost there," Jolly threw over his shoulder. Sam could now make out a small group of hobbits gathered and waiting for them, and the dot turned into the glow of a lantern held high in greeting. 

"Whoa, Bill," Jolly said a few moments later, pulling back on the reins, and Bill, snorting, his sides heaving like a bellows from his exertions, began to shorten his stride. With reckless abandon, Sam threw himself from the pony's back before Bill had even slowed to a trot. Sam staggered a little as he hit the ground, but kept his feet, and to his great relief, Huan at once came running to meet him, his whip-thin tail beating a furious tattoo of welcome. He wasted no time in leading Sam to the spot where Frodo lay prone on the grass, the grey of his Elven cloak blending seamlessly into the evening shadows so that he was nearly invisible to the eye.

" _Frodo_ ," Sam breathed. The sight of Frodo thus unmoving and unresponsive, his hands resting limply beside his head, caused Sam's throat to tighten painfully with the ache of barely suppressed tears. He sank to his knees by Frodo's side. "Oh Frodo." 

With trembling hands, Sam grasped Frodo by the shoulders and carefully turned him over. Then he gathered him up in his arms, cradling him against his breast. Frodo's head fell back against Sam's shoulder and a surge of anger flooded through Sam at the sight of the dirt and grass that streaked his face, and at the coolness of his skin when Sam touched the backs of his fingers to one ivory-pale cheek. "Frodo, how could they dishonour you so," he whispered, and bending, kissed him softly on the brow. He felt a small puff of breath issue from Frodo's lips and warm his own skin as he drew back, and a sob escaped him. "Oh Frodo."

Then he looked over Frodo's head at the group of hobbits clustered in the pool of lantern light some twenty paces away, and his anger spilled over into words. "What do you mean by it, standing about this way? Could not one of you have come to his aid?" Sam demanded, his voice shaking with the force of his feelings, the tears starting in his eyes. He cradled Frodo's cold hands between his own, and began trying to chafe some warmth back into them. 

It was Farmer Cotton who spoke for them all, and the contrition in his voice was unmistakable. "I'm that sorry, Sam; we all are. We wanted to do summat for Mr. Frodo, but Huan wouldn't let us near him and I reckon he had good reason. When Mr. Frodo roused earlier and saw us, he seemed right distressed, and not like himself at all." 

"Sam?" Frodo's weak, anxious voice immediately pulled Sam's attention away from Farmer Cotton. "Are they still here? Are they watching us?" His hands held Sam's in a desperate grip, cold fingers opening and closing convulsively.

"Who, Frodo dear?" Sam asked quietly as he bent over him again, and he felt torn between intense relief that Frodo had regained consciousness, and equally intense fear at the meaning of his strange words.

"The pale King and his Riders. I thought I saw them, watching us from the shadows." Frodo's eyes started to stray in the direction of Tom Cotton and the others, and Sam, understanding now, quickly angled his body so as to block them from Frodo's view. "We must get away, Sam, at once," he said.

Though grief and pity were welling up inside him, Sam was able to keep his voice steady as he replied, "But don't you remember, Frodo dear? The Black Riders are gone, gone forever; they were destroyed when that Gollum fell into the Crack of Doom with the Ring."

"Destroyed?" Frodo said, his brow creasing in puzzlement. "But I- I thought..."

"Aye, destroyed," Sam said in a calm, matter of fact manner, and taking hold of Frodo's maimed hand, gently wrapped it around the star-gem; he could almost feel a pulse of energy radiating from the white stone into Frodo's hand, healing and warming it. "They're gone, Frodo," he repeated softly. "You're safe now." He pushed the tumbled curls off Frodo's brow with a tender hand, and kissed the smooth white skin again. 

Frodo seemed then to come back a little to himself. He stared up at Sam, and even in the dim light Sam could tell that Frodo saw him more clearly at that moment than he had in days. The look in his eyes, compounded of pain, regret and anguish, tore at Sam's heart. "Sam, I'm so sorry," Frodo whispered. "Forgive me."

"Hush," Sam said, blinking back tears as he placed a forefinger over Frodo's lips. "There's naught to forgive, my dear. Never think it." He removed his finger, and sat back. "Now come, let me help you to your feet. It's time we were going home."

"But Sam, wait," Frodo said anxiously, staying Sam with a hand on his sleeve. "Where is Huan? Is he lost? I can't see him."

"Nay, he's not lost," Sam hastened to reassure him. "Huan's here, he's right here beside you. It's only the dark that makes him hard to see because of his colour." 

Huan, hearing his name, wriggled in between the two hobbits and rested his head on Frodo's shoulder. Frodo's arms closed tightly around the little whippet as if fearing he might disappear at any moment. "He saved my life, Sam," Frodo said softly, as he stroked the scarred velvet of Huan's fur. "He kept me from falling in, you know," and as if compelled his eyes turned toward the faint gleam of water so short a distance away, but then he shuddered and quickly averted his gaze.

"Falling in? What do you mean?" Sam's eyes followed Frodo's, and his blood ran cold as comprehension dawned.  _Frodo had nearly drownded_. Sam could imagine with stark clarity the cold dark waters closing over Frodo's head, and no one there to rescue him as he sank like a stone to the bottom of the river. His earlier fear at Jolly's words might well have been true, Jolly might have been bringing him here to claim Frodo's lifeless, drownded body... He felt faint and sick. 

But Frodo did not answer his questions, only said, "Huan's trembling, Sam. He's cold and tired; we must get him home at once." He gently released his hold on the whippet, and began to struggle to his feet. Sam roused himself with an effort, and helped Frodo to stand, though his own legs felt none too steady. 

When they were on their feet, he draped Frodo's right arm over his shoulders and held him tightly about the waist, feeling that he dare not relinquish his hold until they were well away from the edge of the river. Frodo sagged a little in Sam's grip as if even this small effort had exhausted him, and his head drooped forward, his dark curls sweeping down to hide his pale, dirt-streaked face. 

Sam began to lead Frodo toward the spot where Jolly stood holding Bill, near the group of fascinated hobbits. Then he stopped and thought a moment. He'd never manage to get Frodo up onto Bill's back by himself, not with Frodo being weak as a kitten, but if Frodo roused and saw a gaggle of hobbits clustered around him... 

"Mr. Cotton?" Sam raised his voice slightly. "Would you bring Bill here? And alone, please."

Tom hastened to do Sam's bidding. He took the pony's reins from Jolly and led Bill over. "What can I do, Sam?" he asked quietly.

"I'll need your help to get Frodo up into the saddle, sir. I'm afraid he ain't able to do much for himself right now."

Tom nodded. Together, and with some difficulty, Sam and Farmer Cotton hoisted Frodo onto Bill's broad back. The wise pony, understanding that he must stand as still as possible, did not so much as move a muscle during the process.

When Frodo was at last slumped in the saddle, and Sam holding tight to his trouser leg lest he lose his balance, Sam said earnestly, his ears burning with shame, "Mr. Cotton, I hope you'll accept my apology for shouting at you like I did before. I was just that upset..."

Tom laid a comforting hand on Sam's shoulder. "No apology necessary, lad. I'd have felt the same if it had been my Lily lying there. I'm only sorry we couldn't have done more for him."

"Well, you and the others, especially Jolly, deserve my thanks, and so I hope you'll tell them, Mr. Cotton."

"I'll tell them if you like, but the only one really deserves thanks is your Huan there. He came into the  _Green Dragon_ , Sam, to find help for Mr. Frodo, and brought us back here, all on his own." He looked down at Huan and said quietly, "I reckon he's more than repaid Mr. Frodo today for his kindness in taking him in and giving him a home."

"Aye, that he has," Sam agreed, the tears thick in his throat again, but he wasn't thinking of Huan, so timid and fearful of strangers, braving the common-room of the  _Green Dragon_  on his master's behalf. He was thinking of Frodo's chilling words, "He kept me from falling in, you know," and all that they implied of Huan's heroic actions that day, and the depth of his love and devotion. Sam's instinctive faith in him had been rewarded a thousand-fold and more.

"Sam," the farmer added in a low voice as Sam gathered up the reins and prepared to mount Bill. "Do you want me to send the healer up to Bag End?"

Sam shook his head. "It ain't that kind of illness," he replied, unable to keep the sorrow from his voice. "There's not a healer in the Shire could do aught for what ails him right now. He's reliving things that happened on our journey, see: bad things, Mr. Cotton."

"Same as he did in March." Tom sighed. "I suspected as much."

"What are you talking about?" Sam, about to put his foot into the stirrup, paused and stared in astonishment at Tom, who looked taken aback by his question. 

"Why, do you mean to tell me Mr. Frodo never said aught to you about it?"

"About what?" Sam demanded, his heart pounding with dread of what the farmer would say.

"He took a sort of funny turn one day last March, Sam. Gave me quite a start it did. It was while you was up north doing your planting." And Tom quickly related to Sam how Frodo had acted, and the strange words he'd spoken. "I'm surprised he never told you."

"He'd not have wanted to worry me," Sam replied, a hint of bitterness underlying the words. "He's like that, you see. Keeping all his hurt inside instead of sharing it, thinking he's a burden-" He broke off, and bit his lip hard.

"I see what great store he sets by you, Sam," Tom said kindly, and a little sadly, thinking of his Rosie's disappointed hopes. "But I will say this: he seemed quite his usual self the very next day. So maybe he was right not to worry you with it."

"Maybe," Sam said without conviction. He set his foot in the stirrup, and swung up into the saddle, settling close behind Frodo, who hadn't moved or spoken during Sam's conversation with the farmer. Sam gathered up the reins in his right hand, and clasped Frodo around the middle with his other arm.

"Send word when you can, Sam, and let us know how Mr. Frodo's getting on," Tom said as Sam clicked his tongue and the pony began to move away.

"I will. And thank you again, Mr. Cotton." Sam urged Bill into a slow trot.

The other hobbits joined Tom then, and they watched in silence as the chestnut pony with his two riders and the small grey dog running at his side disappeared into the darkness. 

"Poor lad," Tom said, breaking the silence, and it wasn't clear, even to himself, which of the hobbits he meant.

***

The return journey to Bag End was understandably slower than the frantic dash to the river. Sam, a competent but by no means expert rider, did not dare risk a pace quicker than a trot, for Frodo remained limp in his grasp, and only Sam's tight hold on him kept him upright and in the saddle.

There were many thoughts and emotions churning in Sam's breast, especially after the shock of learning that Frodo had been ill while he was away in March, but he let them be. There were words that needed to be spoken between him and Frodo, many words indeed of apology and explanation, but those were for later. For now there was only the blessed reality that Frodo was safe. Sam buried his face in the tousled curls that were tickling his chin, and breathed in their sweet scent, thinking how close he had come to losing this, to losing Frodo... If not for Huan... Sam raised his head, not wishing to wet Frodo's hair with the tears that had begun to run down his cheeks. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve and urged Bill on to as fast a pace as he dared.

Twice during the ride home, Frodo abruptly straightened and said, with a trace of panic in his voice, "Sam?" Sam's quick reassuring, "I'm here, Frodo dear," seemed to calm him, however, and he sank back once more into a stupor.

Bill made his way at a quick trot along the Bywater Road and through Hobbiton, and then he turned at the mill onto the Hill Lane, his hooves clopping softly as he breasted the slope. He came to a halt by the front gate of Bag End. It was full dark now with no stars or moon visible to shed welcome light, and the wind carried the scent of rain. The storm was moving in sooner than Sam had anticipated.

"Good lad, Bill," Sam said to his faithful pony, patting Bill on his satiny neck before dismounting. He hated to let go of Frodo for even those brief moments, but as soon as he was out of the saddle and on the ground, Sam was reaching up on tiptoes to take hold of Frodo under the arms. He eased him carefully from Bill's back, and Frodo roused a little as he was set on his feet. 

"Sam?" he whispered, leaning heavily against Sam. "Are we there yet?"

"Aye, we're there," Sam reassured him, though he knew not whether Frodo meant Rivendell or Mount Doom or Bag End or even, he thought with a pang, some place he had only yet visited in his dreams. 

"Good. So tired, Sam."

"I know, my dear. There'll be rest and food for you very soon. Just let me take care of Bill, and we'll go inside." 

Sam held onto Frodo with one arm, while he awkwardly knotted the reins on Bill's neck so they wouldn't trip him up. "You go on down to your stable, Bill-lad," Sam said, and patted him gently on the rump, "and I'll be by tomorrow with the largest sack of apples and carrots you've ever seen." Bill nickered softly and trotted away down the lane, back to his stall at the  _Ivy Bush_  where a stable lad would be waiting to care for him.

It was nearly pitch dark inside Bag End, for Sam had rushed off without leaving so much as a single lantern or candle burning, but even in the blackness he could navigate the smial without difficulty. He half-led, half-carried Frodo through the quiet hallway to their bedchamber while a worried Huan hovered close at their heels. To his relief, Sam did not now sense the menacing presence that had leered at him from the shadows when he left Frodo lying tense and unhappy in their bed- had it really only been that morning? 

Sam maneuvered carefully through the narrow doorway and eased Frodo down on the edge of the bed. Huan leapt up beside Frodo and curled up at his side, clearly unwilling to be apart from him even for a moment. 

"There now, let me get us some light." Sam turned to the bedside table and lit the brace of wax candles they kept there. The room was soon illuminated with a soft amber glow that revealed Frodo's head nodding to his chest. Quickly, Sam went to the wardrobe and took one of Frodo's nightshirts from the drawer, and then returned to the bed. 

"I'm sorry, Frodo dear," Sam said, taking Frodo by the hands and pulling him to his feet. "I know you want to sleep, and you shall, just as soon as I make you comfortable."

As if Frodo was a fauntling too young to undress himself, Sam unbuttoned and removed his soiled clothes, tossing them heedlessly in a pile on the floor, save for the Elven cloak that he carefully folded and set aside. When Frodo, who stood with uncharacteristic passivity throughout, was stripped of all but his smallclothes, Sam drew the nightshirt over his head, putting his arms through the sleeves with loving care, and straightening the turned-under collar. 

The candlelight warmed Frodo's pale skin to a rich honey-gold, but it also emphasised the hollows beneath his ribs, and deepened the shadows beneath his eyes. Sam's conscience smote him at this evidence of the toll the past weeks had taken on Frodo, and he vowed to see to it that Frodo regained every ounce of weight he'd lost and more if it was the last thing he did. 

Sam turned down the bedcovers and held Frodo by the elbow as he climbed onto the high bed. Frodo laid back against the pillows, and Sam pulled the covers up around him and tucked them in. Frodo, watching with heavy-lidded eyes, made no protest at this evidence of Sam fussing over him, though Sam would far have preferred to be scolded in the old teasing way by a Frodo strong and well. 

"You go to sleep now, my dear," he said when he was done, "You're safe, and Huan and I will stay with you. There's naught to fear." He brushed a kiss across Frodo's temple, and straightened.

Frodo sighed deeply. "Thank you, dear Sam," he murmured. His eyelids drifted shut, and between one heartbeat and the next he was asleep.

Sam stood staring down at Frodo, treasuring every slow rise and fall of his breast. Then he transferred his gaze to the weary, valiant little whippet who had worked such wonders this day. Huan was about to settle into his accustomed spot at Frodo's left side, turning in small circles first as was the way of a dog before lying down.

"Huan," Sam said quietly, "come here." Huan stopped his circling and came to Sam at once. He stood up on his hind legs and set his paws on Sam's shoulders, looking at him with trust and love. Sam hugged him close, and said, "I've not even thanked you yet, have I, and you the bravest and truest dog as ever lived. Aye, even braver and truer than Huan of Valinor, I reckon. They should be putting you in songs and stories, lad, so no one will ever forget what you did today." 

Sam choked a little, and went on in a thick voice, "But I'll never forget, Huan, not as long as I live. If it wasn't for you-" But he could not go on, only pressed a loving kiss on the top of Huan's velvet-soft head, and gave a shaky laugh as Huan licked him on the chin in return. "You go rest by Frodo now, and after you've both had a good sleep, it'll be time for a meal. I'd feed you off a plate made of gold and jewels if I had one, Huan-lad," Sam added softly, and meant it.

Huan stretched out at Frodo's side, wriggling around in the covers until he was comfortable, and moments later he, too, was sound asleep. Sam crossed to the window and closed it against the damp night air, and then went to the hearth to rekindle the fire, building it to a cheerful blaze. He fetched an extra quilt from the clothespress and spread it over Frodo and Huan, worried lest they not be warm enough. Next he went to the kitchen and rebuilt the fire there, and heated water with which to wash the dirt from Frodo's face and hands. 

Carrying basin, cloth and soap, Sam returned to the bedchamber and sat down on the bed beside Frodo. He wet the cloth with the warm water and soaped it, and as lightly and carefully as he could, washed the streaks of dirt from Frodo's face, rejoicing to see the fair skin unmarred by any wounds. All the while Sam worked, Frodo did not stir.

Then he turned his attention to Frodo's hands, but they were scratched and slightly bloodied. Sam cleaned them thoroughly, being extra careful with a long scratch across the back of Frodo's right hand. He would put calendula salve on the wounds, and he was certain that they would heal well. And compared to what might have happened...

Sam set aside the basin and cloth, and studied Frodo's sleeping face. His sleep seemed untroubled and genuine, and Sam felt hope that perhaps the dark dreams were ending and the shadows withdrawing at last. He remembered what Farmer Cotton had said about Frodo's illness in March, that he had seemed quite his usual self the next day. 

There were bits of leaves and grass scattered in Frodo's hair, Sam noticed. He reached out and carefully removed a small twig that was tangled up in a silky curl. He dropped it on the table and reached out again, but then hesitated, for to his surprise, Frodo's eyes were open and he was watching him. 

"Sam," he said, and taking Sam's hand in his maimed one, cradled it against his cheek and then turned his head to kiss the calloused palm. He laced their fingers together, and smiled at Sam, his blue eyes unclouded and seeing him truly in that moment. "I love you," he whispered.

"I love you, too." Sam could barely get out the words against the lump in his throat. But he wasn't even sure if Frodo heard him, for already his eyes were closing again, and he fell asleep holding Sam's hand.

There was a low rumble of thunder, and a sudden patter against the windowpanes as the first raindrops began to fall. The storm had broken. But Bill would be back at his stable by now, snug and warm, and he and Frodo and Huan were safe indoors. The fire was crackling merrily and the room growing warm. Let the rain fall if it would, Sam thought. 

After a few minutes Sam tried gently to disengage his fingers from Frodo's, intending to return to the kitchen and begin preparing some food, for Frodo and Huan would undoubtedly be ravenous when they awoke. But even in sleep, Frodo would not relinquish his hold on Sam's hand, and murmured a little as if in protest. 

So Sam sat on, listening to the rain and wondering what the morning would bring.  



	4. Into Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frodo and Sam have a badly needed talk, secrets are revealed, and misunderstandings resolved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible tissue warning. The end of this chapter always makes me cry, anyway. :-)

Sam awoke with a start. He lay for a moment, groggy and disoriented, wondering where he was. He had a fearsome crick in his neck and he was resting at a very odd angle: half-sitting, half-lying, with his right arm bent beneath him so that it felt completely numb. But then, it was always difficult to rest comfortably on the road, he thought muzzily, what with dirty great tree roots and rocks digging into your back and the damp settling in your bones no matter how many blankets you had heaped around you. 

The ground felt surprisingly soft, though, softer even than the fragrant beds of ferns and grasses that the Elves had prepared for him and Mr. Frodo and Mr. Pippin to sleep on in the Woody End. It felt strangely like he was lying atop one of the cloud-soft feather beds in Bag End. Not that he'd ever have the cheek to do so, of course, though he'd been tempted a time or two when he was making up the bed after Mr. Frodo had risen, and was smoothing his hand over the mattress and marvelling at the softness of it.

Mr. Frodo... Frodo...

Memory came flooding back in a rush, and Sam sat up quickly, wincing as life started to return to his arm in the form of painful pin-and-needle prickles. He tilted his head slowly from side to side in an attempt to loosen his tight neck muscles, and shook out his right arm vigorously, his fingertips tingling as blood rushed back into them. 

Sam wondered what the time was and how long he'd been asleep. A glance at the bedside table quickly provided the answer to both questions: the beeswax candles were still burning and giving off a steady golden light, but more than half of their length was now gone. He must have been sleeping for a good four hours at least, he surmised, and that meant it was well past midnight.

He had dozed off to the sound of raindrops pattering on the windowpanes and the crackle of wood burning in the fireplace- and the blissful feel of Frodo's fingers tangled in his own. At some point while they slept, however, their hands had separated, and Frodo's hand was now lax, palm upward and fingers gently curled, pale against the deep gold and green coverlet that Sam had spread over him and Huan against the cold. 

Sam stared for a moment at that hand: small but strong and capable, sadly marred by the loss of the third finger of which nothing remained but a scarred stump. But for once the sight did not fill him with an aching sense of loss or the futile wish that he might have given one of his own in its place. His attention was caught by something completely different.

He squinted a little, scarce daring to believe what his eyes were seeing, wondering if it was simply his imagination playing tricks on him, fueled by a desperate desire for it to be so. But no, it  _was_  there, though faint, very faint indeed: a clear light that seemed to emanate from Frodo himself. Sam's wondering eyes travelled up Frodo's arm to his face, peaceful and untroubled in sleep as it had sometimes looked on the Quest. And there, too, in those beloved features, Sam could discern the same faint clear light.

It was utterly impossible to hold back tears even had he wished to, but these tears, silent tears of relief and happiness at this outward sign that the dark shadows inside Frodo were releasing their hold upon him at last, were welcome indeed. 

"You're naught but a great watering pot these days, Sam Gamgee," Sam muttered under his breath as he wiped his tear-streaked face on his sleeve. "What would your old dad say if he could see you, blubbering like a babe?" But as Sam's eyes returned to Frodo's face, so fair in the candlelight, he felt such a wellspring of joy that he truly could not care what his father, or anyone else for that matter, might say.

Then Sam felt eyes on his own face and turned his head. The eyes belonged to Huan, who was watching Sam with his head just peeking out from under the edge of the coverlet, a coverlet that was vibrating oddly from the force of Huan's wagging tail beating against it. 

Sam had to smile a little at the sight, and whispered, "You can see it, too, can't you, lad?" He lifted one end of the coverlet. "I reckon it'd be safe to leave Frodo for a bit. Why don't we go along to the kitchen and I'll fix you your supper. You must be fair famished." As if in answer, there was a loud rumbling noise from Huan's stomach and Sam's smile widened. "That sounded like it came from one of Farmer Maggot's boarhounds, Huan-lad." Huan looked indignant.

But the whippet wriggled out obediently from under the blanket and stood up, stretching like a cat fore and aft and yawning hugely. Then he jumped down from the bed, shook himself, and seeming to feel, like Sam, that it was safe to leave Frodo sleeping, accompanied Sam to the kitchen.

Before long Sam was setting Huan's food bowl, filled nearly to overflowing, on the floor. Huan dove into his lavish feast eagerly, and Sam was glad to see the little whippet's usual hearty appetite back in evidence. Within seconds, it seemed, Huan was licking the glazed ceramic clean with his pink tongue, his tail wagging furiously the entire time. 

"I reckon you don't mind that your bowl ain't made of gold and jewels," Sam said thoughtfully as he watched. "You're like me: just happy to have plain good food to eat and a full stomach at the end of your meal." 

A distracted  _woof_  greeted this statement for Huan was busily chasing down one last tiny morsel of chicken with his nose. But when he was finally finished, Huan looked at Sam inquiringly with his head cocked to one side. 

"I know, you don't like to leave Frodo for long," Sam said. "Go on back to the bedroom, then." But Huan didn't immediately leave. He continued to look at Sam, his dark eyes intent on Sam's face, and it was as if he was asking a question. "I'm all right," Sam added softly. "Don't you fret about me. Go on now." 

The truth was, however, that Sam wasn't really all right, and he watched with a lump in his throat as the little whippet padded out of the kitchen. The room seemed a colder and darker place without Huan's presence, and almost immediately the euphoria Sam had been feeling began to fade. But he resolutely turned his attention and his feet toward the pantry shelves. He hoped that Frodo would feel hungry enough to do as much justice to a meal as Huan had just done.

Sam scanned the well-stocked shelves, filled with the bounty of the truly wondrous harvest they'd enjoyed, but try as he might, he could not concentrate on crocks and baskets and tins and the contents thereof. For in his mind he was seeing the shadowed ribs and prominent hipbones of Frodo's too-thin frame as Sam helped him into his nightshirt earlier. Frodo had lost weight over the days since the Party, not one ounce of which he could spare, for he had never regained his proper hobbit weight after the privations he had suffered on the journey to Mount Doom. 

_I've got mushrooms_ , Sam thought, reaching for a towel-covered basket, forcing his mind away from the painful memories of Frodo so thin and worn.  _I can make him a mushroom omelet with cheese. And fry up taters with onions. Bread, too, he'll want bread and butter to go with it._  Sam carried the basket out of the pantry and set it on the counter.  _Or maybe I should make a mushroom pie, something more hearty like. But it don't seem right somehow, serving him supper at this hour. I wonder if there's a name for a meal taken in the middle of the night. I'll warrant Pippin knows, after standing Guard duty all them odd hours in Minas Tirith. Well, I'll have to remember to ask him next time I see him._  

Even as these last words ran through his mind, Sam was aware of the absurdity of them, but something odd was suddenly going on inside him. Some sort of unidentifiable emotion was struggling to make its way out, clawing and tearing at his insides, and he couldn't seem to hold it back. 

Abandoning all pretence of cooking, he sank down into a chair at the table, and buried his head in his hands. He began to shake with reaction to all that had happened over the past hours. Images flashed through his mind: Frodo, storming out of Bag End, a strange wild light in his eyes; Frodo, lying unconscious only paces from the dark cold water of the river; Frodo, holding Sam's hand and whispering,  _I love you_. 

"Sam."

Sam jerked his head up and looked around. Frodo was standing in the doorway with Huan at his side. His face was pale as chalk, and his white-knuckled fingers were clinging to the doorframe for dear life. He was clad only in his fine lawn nightshirt, and he looked absurdly child-like with his tousled hair and slight frame. But though Sam's first instinctive reaction was to jump up, to scold Frodo for not putting on his dressing gown or at the very least wrapping a blanket around himself, he found he simply hadn't the energy to move. He'd reached the end of his tether, and he could only stare at Frodo from red-rimmed, exhausted eyes.

They looked at each other for a long moment, and then Sam said in a hoarse voice, "You oughtn't to have got up, Frodo. You ought to be resting."

"Huan woke me," Frodo replied simply. "He seemed to think you need me." He hesitated. "Sam, you mustn't take on so. Please, my dear. It breaks my heart to see you. The worst is over, I'm certain of it, and I shall no doubt be quite fit in a day or two."

"Same as you were in March?" Sam asked heavily.

"How..." began Frodo, startled, and then answered his own question. "Mr. Cotton."

"Aye, he mentioned it, and in all innocence, Frodo, thinking that you must have told me long ago. He was right surprised to find out that you'd never breathed a word of it to me. But not near so surprised as I was to find out that you'd been ill in the first place." 

Frodo was silent, his face drawn. "Sam, I didn't want to worry you," he said finally, staring down at his feet. "You had so much else on your mind then, so many responsibilities and so much work to do."

"Worry me." Sam gave a sad little huff of laughter. "As if you've done aught else but worry me ever since I found out..." He stopped, biting at his lip, aware that he'd said too much. Frodo was no fool. He'd see at once that Sam wasn't referring to what he'd learned from Farmer Cotton.

"What do you mean? Sam, finish what you were going to say," Frodo demanded tensely. "Ever since you found out what?"

Taking a deep breath, Sam screwed himself up to confess at last the secret that had haunted his waking and sleeping hours for so many months. "Frodo, I  _know_ ," he whispered, his hands clenching into fists on his knees.

"Know?" There was apprehension in Frodo's voice, and he gripped the doorframe more tightly.

"I know what the Queen said to you by the fountain the day she gave you that white gem. That she said you can take her place and pass over Sea into the West if- if you can't be healed here in Middle-earth." It felt strangely to Sam then as if some invisible thorn had been withdrawn from deep inside him, releasing the poison from a festering wound. 

There was a moment of silence so absolute that Frodo's next words fell into it like stones shattering glass. "How did you find out?"

"You talked in your sleep. One night in Minas Tirith, a few days before we set out for home." Sam shut his eyes, recalling his growing horror as Frodo's muttered words sank in and understanding dawned. "I didn't want to believe it, Frodo. I wanted to believe it was only some nightmare that was troubling you in your sleep. But I- I couldn't be certain so..." He paused and swallowed hard. "I asked Strider."

"Oh Sam."

"He told me the truth of it." 

_The King's grey eyes were grave as he knelt before Sam and took his hands in a comforting clasp. "This does not mean that Frodo's path is set, Sam," he had said with gentle compassion. "It may well be that he will find healing and rest in the Shire. Do not give in to despair." But Sam could tell that Strider had little faith in his own words, and his heart, so hopeful of a return to their beloved Shire and a peaceful, useful, contented life at Frodo's side, had come near to breaking._

"And you have held this knowledge inside you all this time? Sam, oh my dear Sam, why did you never say anything?"

"Because I had no right, did I," Sam replied, and the complete absence of any note of reproof in the words was more painful to Frodo than if Sam had shouted accusations at him. "It was your secret to tell or not as you chose. And you chose not to, seemingly."

Frodo stared down at his feet once more, unable to meet Sam's eyes. "Yes, I chose not to, Sam. I was hoping it would never prove necessary for me to tell you and that I could spare you needless upset." He looked up then and his eyes were filled with a sorrowful tenderness as he said softly, "I was hoping that I could find healing and rest here in the Shire, with you."

"No more'n I was hoping," Sam replied in a thick voice, "and it seemed like these past months you were... and then... and then..." He couldn't go on. His shoulders slumped and he rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands.

"Sam..."

"Did you know that there've been times I've hated that white stone around your neck?" Sam sat up and pointed a trembling forefinger at the beautiful star-gem, sparkling at Frodo's breast. "Near as much as I hated  _It_. I ain't meaning no disrespect to Queen Arwen, and I know the stone brings you comfort, but there's times when I look at it and all I can think of is you leaving. Sometimes," Sam added in a painful whisper, "sometimes in my sleep I can hear the Sea calling to you, Frodo, like as if I was sharing your dreams."

"It's true that I've dreamt of the Sea," Frodo admitted, and to Sam's terror-struck eyes, he suddenly appeared to grow paler than ever and remote, as if already in his mind and heart, he had departed Middle-earth. And then the strangeness passed like a cloud over the Sun, and Frodo said, "But less and less often as time passed, Sam, and I began to believe that I need not leave the Shire, at least not for a very long time, if ever."

_Began to believe._  "And now?" Sam could barely force out the words for fear of Frodo's answer.

Frodo bent his head. "I can't clearly recall all that happened yesterday, Sam. It's such an awful muddle in my mind. But I know that I said terrible things to you, hurtful things. My dear," his voice lowered so that Sam had to strain to hear it, "the thought that I might act so again fills me with dread."

"The thought of you leaving Middle-earth fills  _me_  with dread," Sam said, "and the fact that if it wasn't for chance, I'd not even have known the possibility existed."

"I  _would_  have told you, Sam- eventually..." Frodo's voice trailed away.

"Eventually?" Sam demanded. "Exactly  _when_  were you planning on breaking the news to me that- that you'd decided to leave Middle-earth forever? When we were on the way to the Havens next autumn? Aye," Sam added, seeing the startled look on Frodo's face, "I've managed to put two and two together, Frodo, though it took me some time, I'll admit. That's when Mr. Bilbo will be leaving, ain't it, and the Lady, and Lord Elrond, too."

Frodo's silence was answer enough.

"What I don't understand is why you couldn't have trusted me, Frodo." 

"But I  _do_  trust you!" Frodo exclaimed, horrified by Sam's words. "There is no one in Middle-earth I trust more than you, Sam. It isn't a matter of trust."

"Then why? I reckon I deserve to know why you kept this from me."

As if the words were being torn from him against his will, Frodo said slowly, "Because I was- I  _am_ \- afraid that you will ask to leave with me if I must go, and that I will not be strong enough to deny you."

Sam stared at him, utterly flabbergasted. "There's no question of asking or denying, Frodo. Of course I'm going with you if you leave. How could you think otherwise?"

" _No!_ " Frodo said, sounding quite fierce. "No, I won't do that to you, Sam. I won't take anything more from you than I already have."

Sam set a hand to his forehead. His thoughts were all in a whirl at this turn of events. Whatever he had expected Frodo to say, it wasn't this. "You'd best explain what you mean by that, because I'm fair gobsmacked and no mistake."

Frodo rested his shoulder against the doorframe and made a helpless gesture with one hand. "Sam, how often on the Quest did you speak with longing of the Shire? It was the memory of home and the hope of returning some day that gave you the strength to go on, even at the very last. You've laboured and laboured all these months to heal her wounds, to make her whole once more. I've never seen you so happy as when you're walking the fields and seeing your trees growing healthy and strong. You love this land so dearly, Sam. This is where you belong for many years to come."

"And why do you reckon I laboured so hard to make everything beautiful again if not for  _you_? There'd have been no Shire to save, would there, if you hadn't done what no one else in Middle-earth could have. As for where I belong," Sam added stubbornly, "it's by your side, whether it's here or in Mordor or over the Sea. I told the Elves I'd follow you if you climbed to the Moon, and I meant it."

Frodo shook his head in wordless denial. "But it's not only that," he said after a moment. "It's..." he hesitated. "It's Rosie Cotton." And he flushed slightly as he said the name.

" _Rosie Cotton?_ " repeated Sam blankly.

Frodo's fingers went to the star-gem at his breast and touched it. "I'm well aware that she has always had an eye for you, Sam, and I believe that you had an eye for her once, too, before we left on our journey. Had things been different, you'd be married now and perhaps already a father. Marigold was right, Sam, when she said that you would make a most wonderful father." 

Sam stared at him open-mouthed as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing, as indeed he could not. 

"If I must go and leave you behind," Frodo continued resolutely though his face looked pinched and sorrowful, "it would make me happy to know that you have the wife and family you deserve."

Sam contained himself with some difficulty; shouting at Frodo wouldn't help. It was clear that he was serious. Wrong-headed and stubborn, too, but deadly serious.

"I'll not deny," replied Sam as calmly as he could under the circumstances, "that the thought of me and Rosie marrying some day had occurred to me a time or two before you and me left the Shire. It was what my Gaffer and Mr. Cotton had their sights set on, that's certain, and Rosie maybe, though I'd said no word nor made no promises to her. And for that I'm right grateful, Frodo, because the plain truth is, I ain't the same hobbit as I was back then: I've changed." 

He went on in a soft voice, almost one of reverence: "How could I not change, when I saw the light inside you, more beautiful than the light of any star in the night sky. When I saw you carry that terrible burden more bravely than anyone else could have done." He blinked hard. "When I held your dear body in Cirith Ungol after I thought I'd lost you, and it seemed as if the light had gone out of my life. When I held you again after I found you like a miracle in that tower," he added, "and felt that I could have stayed that way forever."

"Sam," Frodo began, his eyes suspiciously bright, but Sam shook his head vehemently.

"Nay, you've got me a-started now, and you'll have to let me finish, Frodo. As far as children, well, I reckon that if I feel a need for little 'uns to fuss over, I can visit my sisters, now can't I. And in all your grand plans for my happiness, Frodo, you seem to have forgot one thing."

"What is that?" Frodo asked, and he sounded rather stunned, as if Sam had suddenly turned into a fire-breathing dragon.

"That maybe I'd have an opinion on the matter, seeing as how it concerns me a little. Rosie's a fine lass and no mistake. But she ain't the hobbit I love, nor the one I agreed to live with neither. Oh Frodo, do you really believe that you could say to me, 'Marry Rosie, Sam, and stay behind in the Shire while I go sailing off to the West' and I'd up and do it?" 

"Yes... No... Oh, I don't know!" Frodo said miserably. "You can't deny that there have been times when you've felt ill-at-ease in Bag End, Sam. And I've sometimes wondered- I've wondered if perhaps you were regretting your choice to come and live with me here."

"Then shame on me for ever letting you think that for a moment," Sam said with some bitterness. "Because it never had aught to do with you, Frodo. Only, it's hard sometimes, right hard, not to feel as if I'm getting above myself when I'm sitting in Mr. Bilbo's seat at table, or watching some poor lad from the  _Dragon_  serving me- me, Samwise Gamgee, who used to wait at table!"

"But Sam, you-"

"But never," Sam forged on, determined not to allow this misunderstanding to exist between them for another moment, "not even once, have I regretted my choice, Frodo. I do love the Shire dearly and it's done my heart good to see her being healed of her wounds. But I love you more, Frodo Baggins, you stubborn hobbit, and I'll not be parted from you, not if I have to swim all the way to Valinor behind that ruddy ship."

"Oh Sam, you can't swim." But there were tears swimming in Frodo's eyes.

"Then I'll start practicing straight away so I'm ready, just in case," Sam said, only partly in jest.

"Are you quite, quite certain?" Frodo asked, and he was not questioning Sam's determination to learn how to swim.

"Stubborn Baggins," Sam replied, the tears starting in his own eyes, "thinking I don't know my own mind or heart. Aye, I'm certain."

"Then, my dearest, dearest Sam, I should very much like to hold you now, only I'm afraid that if I try to move, I shall ruin this moment by falling on my bottom directly." 

Sam was up and around the table in a blur of motion, and at Frodo's side in a trice, and then they were locked together in a close embrace, Frodo's arms twined about Sam's neck and his face buried in Sam's shoulder. "Tighter, Sam, hold me tighter," Frodo whispered and Sam, nothing loathe, held him tighter, and then tighter still, until they were so close, Sam thought with a fierce pang of happiness, that nothing could ever come between them again.

***

"Do you really expect me to eat all this, Sam?" Frodo asked in astonishment as Sam set the plate on his lap and handed him a fork. "How many eggs did you use for this omelet? A dozen? And I think you must have emptied the root cellar of potatoes."

"Only six eggs and three potatoes, and aye, I expect you to eat every bit," Sam said, sitting beside Frodo on the sofa. On Frodo's other side, Huan was sitting up, looking hopeful. A plate so piled with food was certain to drop some unexpected treasures that he would be ready and waiting to claim, not to mention those that Frodo would slip to him when he thought Sam wasn't looking.

Frodo eyed Sam consideringly. "You are turning into a tyrant of the first order, Sam Gamgee, picking me up and carrying me places and now ordering me about."

Sam only grinned. "I reckon I should take advantage of the opportunity while I have it. I know it won't last." 

Besides, Sam thought as he watched Frodo cut into his omelet with the side of his fork, Frodo might accuse him of being a tyrant, but he'd laid his head on Sam's shoulder so sweetly when Sam had scooped him up and carried him out of the kitchen and into the study. His eyes had remained fixed on Sam as he moved about the room, lighting more candles and starting a fire on the hearth. He'd said nothing, only watched, and there had been such a softness in his expression as made it hard for Sam to keep his mind on his tasks. And when Sam brought the thick warm quilt that Frodo kept at hand in the study during the cold weather and draped it around him, he'd touched Sam's cheek gently with his fingers as if to reassure himself that Sam was, in truth, really there. 

"Indeed it won't last," Frodo agreed, but he was smiling as he ate his first bite of the fluffy eggs with mushrooms and cheese. Then he forgot everything except his food as he gave a sigh of pure hobbity satisfaction. "Oh, this is wonderful, Sam. I do believe I might do justice to this meal after all; why, I've just realised how famished I am." He paused with a second forkful halfway to his mouth. "But what about you? Aren't you going to eat anything?" he asked, his brow furrowing slightly.

"I'm full," Sam replied, and it wasn't really a lie, for he was full to bursting- with happiness.

"Hmm," was Frodo's somewhat dubious response but he said no more, and (with some help from Huan, it is true) finished every bite of his food, even mopping up the remains with a piece of bread, and washing it all down with two cups of strong tea.

When Frodo was done, Sam took plate and cup from him and set them on the tray he'd brought in earlier. Then he added more wood to the fire and returned to his spot on the sofa beside Frodo. "The rain's stopped," he said as he put his arm around Frodo and drew him close. Huan had climbed onto Frodo's lap and curled up into a tight ball, and Frodo was gently smoothing the whippet's ragged-edged ear through his fingers, over and over, causing Huan to sigh with pleasure and close his eyes contentedly.

"Are you warm enough?" Sam asked with a hint of anxiety after a minute or so. "Should I fetch another blanket?"

"I'm fine, Sam," said Frodo, smiling a little. "You know, my dear, one of these days soon, I  _am_  going to make it up to you. You shall stay in bed all day while Huan and I fuss over you and coddle you and bring you your favourite foods. I am determined on it."

Sam blushed. "Now Frodo, that ain't necessary," he said, embarrassed.

Frodo took Sam's hand in his and pressed it. "It is necessary to me," he replied, and then added, his voice quite serious now, "Sam, I'm sorry."

"Frodo-"

"No, Sam, you had your chance to speak earlier, now it is mine," Frodo said, shaking his head. He raised Sam's hand to his lips and kissed it. "Sam, I am sorry, so very, very sorry, and I ask your forgiveness, not only for what happened yesterday morning, but for all the worry and grief that I've caused you these past few weeks." He released Sam's hand and lightly touched the dark smudge of weariness beneath his eye. "I put that shadow there, and for that I am truly sorry. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me."

"I told you yesterday by the Water, though you may not recall it, that there's naught to forgive," Sam replied. "But if you need to hear me say it, Frodo, then say it I will: I forgive you."

"I do need to hear it," Frodo said quietly. "Thank you, Sam."

"But you're not the only one needs to ask for forgiveness," Sam added. "Frodo, I did some thinking yesterday after you left, and I understood some things I ought to have understood sooner."

"What things?" Frodo asked, searching Sam's eyes intently.

"Well, I know you don't like it when I take hard names to myself, but I deserve to be called a ninnyhammer and worse for forgetting until too late what day it was yesterday. Frodo, I didn't remember until hours after you'd left that it was the anniversary of- of Weathertop," Sam said bitterly. "I could see the shadows growing in you for days, but I didn't understand why. If I'd only remembered..." 

"Sam, how can you blame yourself for that? My dear, you've wanted to put all those bad memories behind you, and rightly so. It would grieve me to think that you were dwelling on them."

But Sam shook his head vehemently. "Nay, I was wrong, wrong for thinking it was best to put the bad memories behind us and forget all about them. Because they ain't been forgotten by you, Frodo, and maybe if I hadn't told you that you oughtn't talk about what happened, you'd have felt you could turn to me when the darkness started coming on you."

Frodo was silent a moment, considering Sam's words. "I've never wanted to be a burden to you, Sam," he said at last.

"And you never have been nor ever could be. I don't know how many times or ways I can tell you that, but you must believe that it's the truth." Sam gathered Frodo's hands between his own and cradled them gently. "One day," he said, looking down at their joined hands, "not today, because the shadows are still too close to us, but one day soon when the Sun is shining overhead and the shadows are far away, we'll sit outside by the mallorn-tree and I'll hold your hands like I'm holding them now, and you can tell me everything that happened, every last bit of it, no matter how sad. It's time- past time that you did."

"Perhaps you are right, Sam; perhaps it is past time that I told you, though I would have spared you," Frodo said softly. "For there are things I have not been able to bring myself to write in the Red Book, and even a few things I have not been able to confide in Huan. Sam, dear Sam, the telling won't be easy and neither will the listening, I fear."

"I reckon it won't, Frodo. But I don't want the two of us to go through any more days like we've just passed." Sam released his hold on Frodo's hands and stroked Huan gently on the head. The little whippet was fast asleep and did not even move. "Nor Huan neither, for though he's the bravest and truest dog as ever lived, and so I told him, it didn't sit right with me to send him off alone to find you and guard over you, and it wasn't fair to ask it of him." 

"Huan  _is_  the bravest and truest dog who ever lived, isn't he," Frodo said, looking down at the little dog curled up so trustingly on his lap. With his forefinger he traced the outline of the long scar that marred Huan's side, pale white in dark blue-grey. "But how did I repay him for his devotion?" Frodo asked sorrowfully. "I spoke harshly to him and made him cringe from me. Huan gave everything he had to keep me safe, Sam.  _He saved my life_ , and I treated him no better than if I was Wil Proudfoot, kicking at him and calling him names." Frodo turned his face into Sam's sleeve. "I'm so ashamed," he whispered.

"Oh Frodo, Frodo, you're no Wil Proudfoot and never could be," Sam exclaimed, "and don't ever let me hear you compare yourself to the likes of him again." He held Frodo close, and rubbed his hand in comforting circles on his back. "You've naught to be ashamed of, my dear. You weren't yourself, and Huan understands that. I reckon he was more confused than anything, for he knows you to be the kindest and gentlest master any dog could hope to have."

As if determined to prove the truth of Sam's words, Huan, sensing as always when Frodo was distressed, rose and pushed his head beneath Frodo's arm, wriggling forward until he was close enough to give Frodo's face a thorough washing with his tongue. 

"There now, what did I tell you? Does that seem to you like Huan's been wishing he followed some other hobbit home that day?"

"Oh Sam," Frodo gave a shaky laugh, and hugged him tightly, "you always know the right thing to say." 

"I don't, more's the pity," Sam replied with a sigh, "or we'd not have landed ourselves in this pickle in the first place. But I reckon we've managed to muddle through it somehow, Frodo, with some help from our Huan."

Huan, despite having been rather squashed between Frodo and Sam for the past few minutes, thumped his tail and looked supremely content at this return to harmony between the hobbits he loved.

"So we have," Frodo agreed, and then he smiled a bit ruefully and added, "Though I can't allow you to take all the credit for the pickle we landed ourselves in, Sam. I must claim my fair share."

"I won't quarrel with you, for I know what a stubborn Baggins you are," Sam said, smiling back. "But Frodo," he went on more seriously, "you must promise me, my dear, that you'll try not to fret any longer about what happened yesterday, either on my account or on Huan's." 

"I will try, Sam dear, but in return there is something I want you to promise me," Frodo said, holding Sam's eyes with his own. "Promise me that you will try and believe that there is no hobbit in the Shire more worthy to sit in Bilbo's place than you, and that Bilbo himself would be the first one to say so."

"I'll try," Sam replied, though he blushed bright red at the very idea that Bilbo would think him worthy to sit in his place. "It ain't going to be easy nohow, but I promise to try."

"Then I am content." Frodo leaned forward and kissed Sam softly on the lips. "Now, don't you think perhaps it's time we found our bed? The Sun will be rising soon." 

Sam looked at the clock on the mantelpiece, astonished to see that it was nearly five o'clock; he'd had no idea so much time had passed since Frodo had joined him in the kitchen. Dawn would indeed soon be arriving, but with what a difference from the day before, he thought. And though he'd slept barely a handful of hours in the past few days, yet Sam felt no weariness, only a deep and abiding sense of joy and peace. 

Huan jumped down from Frodo's lap, and the hobbits rose from the sofa hand in hand. Frodo gave Sam a pointed look, and Sam laughed. "Don't worry, Frodo, I'll not try to carry you this time."

"I didn't really mind, Sam," Frodo admitted, squeezing his hand, "but I've a reason for proving to you that I'm well again." He said no more but, still holding Sam by the hand, led the way to their bedchamber, his steps sure and strong, and Sam wondered what he'd meant.

In their room, Sam went to build up the fire while Frodo climbed into their bed. Then he quickly shed his clothes and joined Frodo beneath the covers. To Sam's surprise, Huan went straight to his basket by the hearth instead of jumping on the bed and settling in his accustomed spot by Frodo's left side. He usually only did that when...

Sam started a little when Frodo's warm hand cupped the back of his neck, fingers sliding into the soft hair at the nape; with surprising strength he pulled Sam down into a deep and intimate kiss. 

"Lie with me," Frodo breathed, releasing Sam's mouth fractionally, just far enough apart to speak. His eyes were dark with need and longing.

"Frodo, are you sure?" Sam asked, pulling back a bit farther, his own eyes filled with concern.

"Didn't I tell you I'd a reason for proving to you that I was well again?" Frodo smiled, and touched Sam's cheek tenderly with his fingers, as he had done earlier in the study. He trailed them down the side of Sam's face and placed them gently on his breast, flattening them so that he could feel the strong, steady beat of Sam's loving heart. "Chase away the shadows, Sam," he whispered. "Make them all disappear."

So Sam did, using every ounce of the love he felt for Frodo as his weapon. He brushed his lips across the cold surface of the scar left by the Morgul blade, willing the life and warmth to return to it; he caressed with loving fingers the faint reddish mark left by Snaga's whip on Frodo's side and the thick ugly scar left by Shelob's sting on the back of his neck; he tenderly kissed the stump of Frodo's missing finger. With every touch, every kiss, Sam battled the darkness that yet remained inside Frodo, and it seemed to him, though he could not be quite certain, that the darkness yielded to the tender fierceness of his assault and began gradually to retreat, so that the beautiful light inside Frodo shone forth brighter and brighter in the firelit dimness of the room.

They fell asleep at last entwined in each other's arms, and slept deeply and dreamlessly as the Sun rose over the green fields of the Shire to greet a clear morning without clouds.

***

The first thing Sam saw when he opened his eyes, was Frodo, sitting cross-legged among the rumpled covers and smiling at him. Huan was curled up beside him, his chin resting on Frodo's knee, and he was looking at Sam with the closest thing to a smile a dog's expression could achieve. 

"Goodness, I was afraid you were never going to wake up," Frodo said, adding teasingly as he had once before: "I almost fell asleep again waiting for you, Sam, you sleepyhead."

"Glory and trumpets," Sam murmured, but he felt no inclination now to spring out of bed and wave his arms, or dance a jig upon the floor as he had in Rivendell. He was too drowsy and comfortable, and besides, the look in Frodo's eyes held him spellbound. His face was absolutely radiant, and the light inside him stronger and brighter than Sam had ever seen it. "Glory and trumpets," he repeated in wonder. "Frodo..." and then to his astonishment and distress, sudden tears filled Frodo's eyes. Sam quickly sat up, the bedclothes falling away. "Frodo, what is it?"

For answer, Frodo reached out and took Sam's hand in his own. "This," he whispered and there was no mistaking the joy in his voice, despite the tears that ran down his face. He gently placed the palm of Sam's hand over the thin silver scar on his left shoulder.

The skin was warm.

 


	5. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Against all odds, Frodo and Sam have written their happy ending.

_Early Winterfilth, 1420_

Behind them they could hear laughter and the slightly overloud voices of hobbits who had imbibed a bit too much ale; it was a merry evening indeed at the  _Green Dragon_. But Frodo and Sam were content to leave the merriment behind and walk home to Bag End through the cool, quiet night under a midnight-blue sky strewn with stars. 

Sam had, in fact, suggested leaving earlier, worried that they had stayed too long and that Frodo had overtaxed himself. When Sam had taken Frodo aside and whispered the suggestion, however, a laughing, intimate look from Frodo had reminded him of exactly how they had passed much of the day (to the shocking neglect of the chores) and Sam had subsided into blushing silence. It might be only a day since Frodo had been found lying facedown by the river, but there was no doubting he had never looked or felt so well.

"I'm still reeling, Sam," said Frodo, taking a deep breath of the crisp fall air. "Who would ever have believed it?"

" _Fair gobsmacked_  was how you put it the first time," Sam reminded him, grinning and swinging their linked hands like a child.

"Aye, and so I was, and still am," Frodo replied, grinning back, then sobered. "Do you know, Sam," he added quietly, "that outside Mr. Cotton and his family, no one at the inn has ever called Huan by his name until tonight? It's always been 'that dog' or 'the stray'. I'd be lying if I said it hasn't bothered me a great deal."

Sam squeezed Frodo's fingers. "I know. They gave him his due tonight, though." 

"Yes:  _the cleverest dog in the Shire_ ," Frodo repeated, sounding flabbergasted by such an encomium from the denizens of the  _Green Dragon_. "And then to have Toby come running after us and give me  _this_ ," Frodo indicated the brown-paper-and-string-wrapped parcel he held in the crook of his right arm. "It's almost past believing."

"Ah well, hobbits are slow to change their minds, ain't they, but when they do... They think of Huan as one of their own now, Frodo, for didn't he come to them for help?" 

Frodo gave a rueful shake of the head. "Perhaps, but I'm afraid Huan is slower even than hobbits to change  _his_  mind; I believe it will take more than some lamb bones, no matter how delicious, to convince him that most hobbits are to be trusted."

"Can't hardly blame him," Sam said, "but any road it's a start, right Huan-lad?"  _And for you, too, Frodo-love, though you couldn't see it, for you never will think of yourself. But I could. I could see it in their faces when you walked in the room, the relief and happiness that you were all right, and you'll never know how happy that made me feel inside._

At Frodo's side the little whippet was trotting along with an eager bounce to his stride: he knew quite well that the contents of the aromatic parcel were destined for his delectation. Huan barked in response to Sam's words, and the hobbits laughed. "I think he's telling us to walk faster, Sam dear," said Frodo, taking Huan's point and quickening his footsteps.

They walked on, though perhaps not fast enough to suit Huan, and then Frodo suddenly stopped. "Sam, look." He pointed up at the sky. Sam followed the direction of Frodo's finger and saw a white star burning overhead. "Eärendil. I don't think I've ever seen him shine so brightly before." They stood in silence for a minute, admiring the beauty of the evening star, and they were both remembering a conversation held in the shadows under Cirith Ungol. "Do you know," Frodo went on softly, "this may sound silly, but it almost seems as though he's smiling down on us."

"It ain't silly, Frodo," replied Sam, gazing up at the star to whose great tale the two of them were bound as surely as the Silmaril was bound to Eärendil's brow. "I reckon he is: for we've written a happy ending to our part of the story. That'd be enough to make anyone smile." 

"We have, haven't we," Frodo said in wonder. "Oh Sam, against all odds, we  _have_  written a happy ending."

***

Huan looked on with approval as Frodo and Sam embraced, and a shiver of perfect happiness coursed through him. All was right with his world again, after even  _his_  faithful heart had nearly despaired. His hobbits did manage to get themselves into the most awful fixes, he thought. It was a very good thing they had him to keep them safe.

When the embrace showed no signs of ending any time soon, however, Huan decided it was best to move things along a little. He nudged Frodo in the back of the knee with his nose and whined until, laughing, Frodo and Sam broke apart. After offering Huan suitable apologies, they set out once more for home. 

Huan couldn't be sorry. Though he was in general the most patient of whippets, there were, after all, those bones to be thought of.


End file.
